Related papers: Maxwell's demon through the looking glass

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…

Thought experiments like Maxwell's Demon or the Feynman-Smoluchowski Ratchet can help in pursuing the microscopic origin of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Here we present a more sophisticated physical system than a ratchet, consisting of…

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…

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…

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 have simulated numerically an automated version of Maxwell's demon inspired by Smoluchowski's ideas of 1912. Two gas chambers of equal volume are connected via an opening that is covered by a trapdoor. The trapdoor can open to the left…

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…

Nearly all theoretical analyses of the Maxwell's demon focus on its energetic and entropic costs of operation. Here, we focus on its rate of operation. In our model, a demon's rate limitation stems from its finite response time and gate…

A demonic being, introduced by Maxwell, to miraculously create thermal non-equilibrium and violate the Second law of thermodynamics, has been among the most intriguing and elusive wishful concepts for over 150 years. Maxwell and his…

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…

Emerging evidence suggests that physical systems operating as Maxwell demons, in which some subsystem of a larger system extracts heat energy from its environment in an apparent local violation of the second law, are commonplace throughout…

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…

In mathematical physical analyses of Szilard's engine and Maxwell's demon, a general assumption (explicit or implicit) is that one can neglect the energy needed for relocating the piston in Szilard's engine and for driving the trap door in…

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…

This is a review of the theory of quantum thermodynamic demons; these are quantum systems that look like they violate the laws of thermodynamics, in analogy with Maxwell's demon. It concentrates on autonomous demons that can be made using…

We study the reduction in total entropy, and associated conversion of environmental heat into work, arising from the coupling and decoupling of two systems followed by processing determined by suitable mutual feedback. The scheme is based…

A tantalizing version of Maxwell's demon is presented which appears to operate reversibly. A container of hard core disks is separated into two chambers of equal volume by a membrane that selects which disk can penetrate depending on the…

We present an autonomous Maxwell's demon scheme. It is first analysed theoretically in term of information exchange in a closed system and then implemented experimentally with a single Rydberg atom and a high-quality microwave resonator.…

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…