Abstract
For more than 140 years Maxwell’s demon has intrigued, enlightened, mystified, frustrated, and challenged physicists in unique and interesting ways. Maxwell’s original conception was brilliant and insightful, but over the years numerous different versions of Maxwell’s demon have been presented. Most versions have been answered with reasonable physical arguments, with each of these answers (apparently) keeping the second law of thermodynamics intact. Though the laws of physics did not change in this process of questioning and answering, we have learned a lot along the way about statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. This paper will review a selected history and discuss some of the interesting historical characters who have participated.
Highlights
Many challenges to the second law of thermodynamics involve a device widely known as a Maxwell’s demon
We found that there is a functional dependence of net entropy change upon initial density difference, with the largest initial density differences resulting in the largest net entropy increase
The photons become more disordered, and we showed that the corresponding increase in the entropy of the light exactly balanced the entropy reduction of the atoms because they get confined by the one-way gate
Summary
Many challenges to the second law of thermodynamics involve a device widely known as a Maxwell’s demon. It has been more than 140 years since Maxwell presented the first form of this hypothetical, eponymous device, but since many other forms have been proposed. This brief historical review cannot possibly discuss all such forms. The references given here contain more results that the interested reader can follow to gain a deeper understanding. Other papers in this symposium are devoted to current research
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