Talk:Maxwell's demon

Cultural references

I think most of the section "Maxwell's demon in popular culture" is pretty useless. It might be worthwhile to elaborate a bit on how the vivid idea of a "demon" has often inspired references outside of the scientific context, and how Maxwell's conception of a rather general "being" with unusual but ultimately worldly facilities evolved into the cute image of a tiny demon, and at what point in history that happened - I understand it was Kelvin who introduced the term "Maxwell's demon", and so on. I know, if I'd like to read that, I should just write it ;)

But as it stands, we have a long list of items along the lines of "M.d. is mentioned in this book", and rarely do we even get to know, really, of what kind the appearance is that the demon makes. For example, one item reads: Maxwell's demon is mentioned in the Novel Homo Faber by Swiss author Max Frisch, as well as in one of the short stories of The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem: "The Sixth Sally, or How Trurl and Klaupacius Created a Demon of the Second Kind to Defeat the Pirate Pugg". - now, for one thing, these works are completely unrelated, so why are they mentioned in the same sentence? And second, I happen to know "Homo faber" quite well, and as far as I can see, the only reference to Maxwell's demon in the book is this (transl. by me):

... she thought I was lonely and wanted to be nice, didn't give up until she got me to chat with her - about navigation, radar, earth curvature, electricity, entropy, of which she had never heard. She was not stupid at all. Of those to whom I explained the so-called Maxwell's daemon, not many understood it as quickly as this young girl, whom I called Sabeth, because Elisabeth, in my opinion, is an impossible name. I liked her, but I didn't flirt with her in any way. ..." etc. etc.

How in the world does that amount to a significant occurrence of M.d. in "popular culture"? (Frisch's novels aren't everybody's idea of "pop culture" either, but that's another question.)

Other items range from the completely useless:

• Maxwell's demon appears in $AUTHOR's $TITLE.

... to the downright silly:

• In the manga Gundam Wing: Episode Zero, one of the Gundam engineers associates Duo Maxwell's last name with Maxwell's demon.

Should these not simply be deleted and only the helpful and significant entries, such as the band named after the demon, be kept? (Granted, there won't be much left.) --SKopp 12:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't say "Maxwell's Demon in Helpful and Significant Popular Culture". Manga and the like are popular culture; something doesn't have to be of any major use to be popular. Also, there wouldn't be, for less-known things, a section that isn't popular culture. Having "Maxwell's Demon in Unpopular Culture" would be kind of dumb.

ChristopherEdwards 17:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why that section failed to mention the Anime "El Cazador de la Bruja". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.131.23.208 (talk) 19:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

This section bothers me the most. It's a mess. My first urge wasn't to delete (I'm an inclusionist- storage is cheap) it was to sort it into Books, Music, Movies, TV. Then it will look like a list and someone will say 'WP is not for lists!' Shall I do it? Connectionfailure (talk) 01:05, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Did Maxwell wonder about the evolution of "informed" systems?

Maxwell's scientific intent in posing this puzzle was mainly about statistical dynamics, but did he also wonder about agents of change? At the time, he may have wondered about evolved biologic systems such as photosynthesis, respiration, and digestion which function so reliably that they seem "informed". (Contemporary biology holds that living systems do not violate the second law, but still puzzles over the nature of information in DNA molecules and in systems.) An "informed" demon running cellular respiration is not so far fetched when one considers the organization of respiratory enzymes and atp synthase machines. We now know that these systems were naturally selected because they worked so well that reproduction of their host organisms was made more successful. But was their work due to the information in the dna that produced these enzymes?

Darwin's ideas had just been published (and have recently been verified with scientific certainty through subsequent fossil evidence and genomics), and Maxwell would have known about natural selection as an historical agency of evolution. Did he also wonder about the natural selection process as a change agent that leads to the selection of information systems? Can science respond to the puzzles of selection and information as apparent agencies, or must this be relegated to either rational or mystical philosophy?

I would rather see science or the philosophy of science give this a try, so here goes. Electron transport enzymes and atp synthase are formations of matter/energy deemed by our brains as valuable because we find meaning in the workings. It then becomes tempting to call these "informed" systems. When the thermodynamics is investigated, the second law is found to be intact, and therefore these valued selections or "informed" system end up being, not agencies, but merely intriguing after-thoughts of our brains.

Maxwell's demon lives on as to tempt us to deal with it, and I bet Maxwell would be delighted. Khobler (talk) 04:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I do not think so, I believe that when people stretch it out to information entropy as the main argument that is playing the loophole. I have an article which I can email you if you want the solution to the dilema. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlanS333 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

New content

Hello everyone, I have done some work recently on Maxwell's demon and the solution. I have published a paper on it and would like to add a short excerpt on the findings to the criticism and development section. Is everyone okay with it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlanS333 (talk • contribs)

Not as long as it sourced to Facebook. Wknight94 ^talk 19:27, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to the talk page, Alan. I'm afraid I agree with Wknight; in order to be included, material needs to be sourced to reliable sources as defined by Wikipedia. In this case, it would need to be from a peer reviewed journal or equivalent. I don't believe that's the case, right? --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:32, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

No it is not in a magazine or in any other corporate owned publishing because I am mainly against corporations, they put profit first above anything at the expense of values. It is however a scientific paper which has been published. It was sourced to the face book notes so that people could see the actual paper if they need it to, but I guess i could put that in further reading or elsewhere or not at all if it causes such pandemonium. However on my last edit i took the facebook part out and just left it as the paper itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlanS333 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Where was it published. If it was published in something that is peer reviewed, even if it is an amateur publication, it can sometimes be valid (I'm thinking for example the Society of Ancients publication, Slingshot. Yes these are all amateur submissions, but my G-d, if you mix your Parthians up with your Sassenids, heaven help you, because these guys won't. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Independent Publishing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlanS333 (talk • contribs) 23:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like it was self-published. So, it is not okay for Wikipedia. (Self-published sources can be used on Wikipedia in only a few special circumstances). Cardamon (talk) 00:39, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Self publishing is as verifiable as other types of publishings. Just because you aren't paying a company does not mean is less verifiable. what are the special circumstances? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.226.103.44 (talk) 04:28, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Have you looked at the link to reliable sources that Floquenbeam provided you? Also, maybe you could read more about Wikipedia means by verifiabilty. It doesn’t mean that we can verify that it got posted it on Facebook yesterday. As an aside, some journals are published by non-profits and some journals do not have page charges. The circumstances when a self-published source can be used are mentioned in the link in my previous reply. Roughly, one of them is when a recognized expert in a field is taking about his or her own field, and saying something not too surprising, and we can’t find a better source for what they are saying. The others are as a source for information about the author(s) that there is no real reason to doubt (one example might be a notable person saying in their blog what their birthday is), or as a source for the actual words of the author(s). Yet another requirement is notability. Generally, something posted recently on Facebook would not qualify. Cardamon (talk) 07:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Bennett's reasoning

The article implies that the demon works if he has an unlimited memory. I read Bennett's papers and it does seem to be what he says, explaining himself by saying an unlimited memory means it's not cyclical and therefore does not violate Carnot cycle rules. In order to store the memory bit, Landauer's minimal energy limit for a bit, E=kT*ln(2), it has to be extracted from the molecule's energy E=3/2*kT to change the state of the memory, but Bennett does not mention this.

If Bennett is right, then why not use a reversible AND gate to detect the presence of 2 molecules coming towards the gate and then open it? Even Bennett says a reversible gate like this would cost only 1 bit. It's waiting on 2 "bits" of energy to come along before spending 1 bit to open the door. My best guess is that the memory bit necessary is the same as the bit energy needed in Feynman's ratchet and pawl or any other minimal "door", which is itself a memory bit. I mean, the minimal bit energy has a 50% chance of being in the wrong place, and if the door has to wait a lot longer for 2 molecules to be coming, then the door is going to be accidentally open a lot longer, exactly offsetting since both the gas molecule energy and the bit energy are based on thermal fluctuations. Ywaz (talk) 18:25, 22 December 2011 (UTC)