How much work can you get by removing weights from a piston?

[2608.14908] How much work can you get by removing weights from a piston? Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search Physics > Classical Physics arXiv:2608.14908 (physics) [Submitted on 14 Aug 2026] Title: How much work can you get by removing weights from a piston? Authors: Joshua Samani View a PDF of the paper titled How much work can you get by removing weights from a piston?, by Joshua Samani View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: In thermodynamics, reversible adiabatic expansion can be understood as a limit of stepwise irreversible processes. We make this idea concrete by studying an ideal gas in an insulating cylinder with a frictionless piston supporting a load divided into $N$ blocks. If blocks are removed one at a time, the resulting expansion is a stepwise, irreversible process, but we prove that for a fixed total load, the work done by the gas approaches the reversible limit as the largest block mass tends to zero. On the way to this limit, an interesting work optimization question arises at finite $N$: how does the work done by the gas depend on the order and sizes of the removed blocks? Guided by numerical experiments accessible to advanced undergraduates, we motivate and then prove general answers to these questions. Our main finite-$N$ result proves that for fixed $N$, the optimal stepwise expansion corresponds to a geometric progression of equilibrium pressures, settling a conjecture previously made by Andresen, Berry, Nitzan, and Salamon. Subjects: Classical Physics (physics.class-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2608.14908 [physics.class-ph] (or arXiv:2608.14908v1 [physics.class-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.14908 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Joshua Samani [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:43:42 UTC (3,255 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled How much work can you get by removing weights from a piston?, by Joshua Samani View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: physics.class-ph < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: physics References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from

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