What physics underlies "The Change" seen in Dies the Fire and sequels?

From various pieces we have pried loose from Steve Stirling, there are three changes to physical laws: • The ideal gas law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law ) has changed. Rather than a reversible relationship between volume, pressure and temperature, a time component has been added such that gas expansion does not produce useful work. In essence, gasses compress normally, but behave more like a liquid when volume expands. E.g., air can be compressed to one tenth of its previous volume, producing ten atmospheres of pressure. Under normal conditions, pressure will cause the gas to expand to its previous volume, and this can be used to move machinery. Under the change, a tiny increase in volume (such as an expansion cylinder moving) will cause the pressure to drop to ambient, resulting in effectively no work being done. The expansion will eventually occur, but so slowly as to be useless. The same will happen with heat engines; with a steam engine, for example, gasses are ...  more