Maxwell's demon

English Etymology en physicist James Clerk Maxwell 1831 1879 = and demon, and probably from Greek daemon, a mythological being intermediate between gods and men. Noun A hypothetical creature in a thought experiment. Maxwell’s demon, if it existed, would act as a sort of gate guard by sorting between higher-energy molecules and lower-energy molecules within an enclosed space. Because such a sorting process would tend to decrease entropy, it would violate the second law of thermodynamics. 1976 5 77 She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat-engines, the other to do with communication. The equation for one, back in the ’30's, had looked very like the equation for the other. It was a coincidence. The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. Translations Hypothetical creature Catalan: ca dimoni de Maxwell m Chinese: Mandarin: cmn 麥克斯韋妖 màikèsīwéiyāo Finnish: fi Maxwellin demoni German: de Maxwellscher Dämon m Hungarian: hu Maxwell-démon Japanese: ja マクスウェルの悪魔 Makusuweru No Akuma) Korean: ko ^맥스웰의 도깨비 Polish: pl demon Maxwella m-an Spanish: es demonio de Maxwell m See also en information engine en perpetual motion machine of the second kind Further reading Second law of thermodynamics