Related papers: Maxwell's Demon and its Fallacies Demystified

It is nearly 150 years since Maxwell challenged the validity of the second law of thermodynamics by imagining a tiny creature who could sort the molecules of a gas in such a way that would decrease entropy without exerting any work. The…

This work provides an overview of key historical developments in the formulation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, focusing on the notorious challenge of ``Maxwell's Demon'', a hypothetical creature who could presumably violate that law.…

Maxwell demons are creatures that are imagined to be able to reduce the entropy of a system without performing any work on it. Conventionally, such a Maxwell demon's intricate action consists of measuring individual particles and…

Using classical thermodynamics, we argue that Maxwell's demon loses its battle against Clausius as any temperature difference or other thermodynamic forces it creates is immediately compensated by spontaneous counterbalancing flows that…

In this highly speculative Letter it is argued that, under certain physical conditions, Maxwell's demon might be capable of breaking the second law of thermodynamics, thereby allowing a perpetual motion machine of the second kind, by…

In the present paper, several issues concerning the second law of thermodynamics, Maxwell's demon and Landauer's principle are dealt with. I argue that if the demon and the system on which it operates without dissipation of external energy…

A Maxwell's demon is a device that gets information and trades it in for thermodynamic advantage, in apparent (but not actual) contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. Quantum-mechanical versions of Maxwell's demon exhibit…

Maxwell's demon was created with abilities to violate the second law of thermodynamics. But the demon always fell short of doing so because of the imposed restrictive condition that reads, the demon needs to do "work". Therefore, you can…

We argue that Maxwell's demon is incapable of creating a nonzero temperature difference. Hence, it does not destroy equilibrium and the second law is never at risk, contrary to the claim by Maxwell and accepted by many. It is therefore…

Maxwell's demons work by rectifying thermal fluctuations. They are not expected to function at macroscopic scales where fluctuations become negligible and dynamics become deterministic. We propose an electronic implementation of an…

The problem of possible violation of the second law of thermodynamics is discussed. It is noted that the task of the well known challenge to the second law called Maxwell's demon is put in order a chaotic perpetual motion and if any ordered…

Maxwell's demon explores the role of information in physical processes. Employing information about microscopic degrees of freedom, this "intelligent observer" is capable of compensating entropy production (or extracting work), apparently…

Mechanical Maxwell's demons, such as Smoluchowski's trapdoor and Feynman's ratchet and pawl need external energy source to operate. If you cease to feed a demon the Second Law of thermodynamics will quickly stop its operation. Nevertheless,…

Resolution of the century-long paradox on Maxwell's demon reveals a deep connection between information theory and thermodynamics. Although initially introduced as a thought experiment, Maxwell's demon can now be implemented in several…

The birth, life, and death of Maxwell's demon provoked a profound discussion about the interplay between thermodynamics, computation, and information. Even after its exorcism, the demon continues to inspire a multidisciplinary field. This…

An autonomous out of equilibrium Maxwell's demon is used to reverse the natural direction of the heat flux between two electric circuits kept at different temperatures and coupled by the electric thermal noise. The demon does not process…

In apparent contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics, Maxwell's demon is able to cyclically extract work from a system in contact with a thermal bath exploiting the information about its microstate. The resolution of this paradox…

Maxwells Demon is a mythical being, first described by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell (although named Maxwells Demon by Lord Kelvin). Maxwell used it in a thought experiment to potentially violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics by…

In his famous letter in 1870, Maxwell describes how Joule's law can be violated "only by the intelligent action of a mere guiding agent", later coined as Maxwell's demon by Lord Kelvin. In this letter we study thermodynamics of information…

We study the physical mechanism of Maxwell's Demon (MD) helping to do extra work in thermodynamic cycles, by describing measurement of position, insertion of wall and information erasing of MD in a quantum mechanical fashion. The heat…