Maxwell's demon Concepts

Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe

by Paul Sen · 16 Mar 2021 · 444pp · 111,837 words

between energy, entropy, and information, and it has engendered fruitful scientific discussion for well over a century. The thought experiment is now referred to as Maxwell’s demon. In his letter to Tait, Maxwell’s aim is “to pick a hole in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics; that if two things are in

From eternity to here: the quest for the ultimate theory of time

by Sean M. Carroll · 15 Jan 2010 · 634pp · 185,116 words

to be found therein. The Past Hypothesis is necessary to make sense of the world around us, but it has a lot to answer for. MAXWELL’S DEMON Let’s shift gears a bit to return to the thought-experiment playground of nineteenth-century kinetic theory. Ultimately this will lead us to the

The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Finally Solving the Mystery of Life

by Paul Davies · 31 Jan 2019 · 253pp · 83,473 words

2. Prof. Arthur Winfree/Science Photo Library/Getty Images 4. Adapted from Fig. 1 of Koji Maruyama, Franco Nori and Vlatko Vedral, ‘The phyiscs of Maxwell’s demon and information’, arXiv: 0707.3400v2 (2008) 10. Courtesy of Alyssa Adams 12. Courtesy of Michael Levin 13. Adapted from C. Athena Aktipis et al., ‘Cancer

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

by James Gleick · 1 Mar 2011 · 855pp · 178,507 words

my investigations by cross influences spreading in both directions.” He mentioned “those of us who have tried to pursue this analogy into the study of Maxwell’s demon” and added that much work remained to be done. Then he suggested that the treatment of language was incomplete without greater emphasis on the human

Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics

by Jim Al-Khalili · 22 Oct 2012 · 208pp · 70,860 words

Julie, David, and Kate Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Preface 1 The Game Show Paradox 2 Achilles and the Tortoise 3 Olbers’ Paradox 4 Maxwell’s Demon 5 The Pole in the Barn Paradox 6 The Paradox of the Twins 7 The Grandfather Paradox 8 The Paradox of Laplace’s Demon 9

E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation

by David Bodanis · 25 May 2009 · 349pp · 27,507 words

times polemical, look at the process of Maxwell’s creativity, including revealing contrasts with the overtheoretical French tradition; Christine M. Crow’s Paul Valéry and Maxwell’s Demon: Natural Order and Human Possibility (Hull, England: University of Hull Publications, 1972) brings out rich insights from a different examination of the French tradition. Richard

Rationality: From AI to Zombies

by Eliezer Yudkowsky · 11 Mar 2015 · 1,737pp · 491,616 words

, right? The agent who inspects each gas molecule, and decides whether to let it through, is known as “Maxwell’s Demon.” And the reason you can’t build an efficient refrigerator this way, is that Maxwell’s Demon generates entropy in the process of inspecting the gas molecules and deciding which ones to let through. But

Complexity: A Guided Tour

by Melanie Mitchell · 31 Mar 2009 · 524pp · 120,182 words

the second law should distinguish between past and future while all the other laws of nature do not is perhaps the greatest mystery in physics.” Maxwell’s Demon The British physicist James Clerk Maxwell is most famous for his discovery of what are now called Maxwell’s Equations: compact expressions of Maxwell’s

The World According to Physics

by Jim Al-Khalili · 10 Mar 2020 · 198pp · 57,703 words

Webs of Information Are Finally Solving the Mystery of Life (London: Allen Lane; New York: Penguin, 2019). Harvey S. Leff and Andrew F. Rex, eds., Maxwell’s Demon: Entropy, Information, Computing (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). THE NATURE OF TIME Julian Barbour, The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics (Oxford

Turing's Cathedral

by George Dyson · 6 Mar 2012

Los Alamos report, “On the Possibility of Extracting Energy from Gravitational Systems by Navigating Space Vehicles,” describing how a spacecraft might operate as a gravitational “Maxwell’s demon,” amplifying a limited supply of fuel and propellant by using computational intelligence to select a trajectory that harvested energy from celestial bodies as it passed