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 followers focused on 'effortless gating' a molecule at a time, but overlooked simultaneous interference of other chaotic molecules, while the demon exorcists tried to justify impossible processes with misplaced 'compensations' by work of measurements and gate operation, and information storage and memory erasure with entropy generation. The illusive and persistent Maxwell's demon fallacies by its advocates, as well as its exorcists, are scrutinized and resolved here. Based on holistic, phenomenological reasoning, it is deduced here that a Maxwell's demon operation, against natural forces and without due work effort to suppress interference of competing thermal particles while one is selectively gated, is not possible at any scale, since it would be against the physics of the chaotic thermal motion, the latter without consistent molecular directional preference for selective timing to be possible. Maxwell's demon would have miraculous useful effects, but also some catastrophic consequences.
"Only simple qualitative arguments can reveal the underlying physic" was quoted by Philippe Nozieres and 'heartily agreed' by Anthony Legget, a Nobel laureate [Science Bulletin 63 (2018) 1019-1022], emphasizing "mathematical convenience versus physical insight … that theorists are far too fond of fancy formalisms which are mathematically streamlined but whose connection with physics is at best at several removes." In light of that, with phenomenological insight and simple, holistic reasoning, the elusive Maxwell's Demon (MD) fallacies, as wishful concepts for over 150 years, are critically examined and demystified here. It is hoped that this treatise will also help demystify some recent challenges of the Second Law of thermodynamics and promote constructive future debates.
James Clerk Maxwell introduced a hypothetical ‘intelligent being (very observant and neat-fingered microbeing)’ in 1867 [1], and publicly in 1871 [2], to miraculously and effortlessly partition the chaotic thermal molecules of a gas in equilibrium into faster and slower groups, and thus, by effortlessly creating a non-equilibrium with work potential, challenge the Second law of thermodynamics (SL), see Figs. 1 & 2. William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) was the first to use the word ‘demon’ for Maxwell’s concept in 1874 [3]. Maxwell’s demon has challenged many, including among the best creative and scientific minds in thermodynamics and statistical physics, chemistry and biology, quantum mechanics, information theory and cybernetics, and philosophy and sociology. Demon embodiment morphed into many weakly defined or fictional structures, has been kept alive with creative imagination, and defended by approximate and incomplete arguments, based on newly developing concepts, with inconsistent and incoherent evidences. Its utility has never been successful.
The science and technology have evolved over time on many scales and levels, so that we now have advantage to look at its historical developments more comprehensively and objectively than the pioneers. Still, the human curiosity and ingenuity persistently result in wishful imagination (or unrealistic ’thought experiments’) even if against the forces and processes of nature. Sometimes, highly accomplished scientists and authors in their fields, do not fully appreciate the essence of the subtle Second Law of thermodynamics.
Maxwell’s demon has been a topic of many scientific, philosophical and social publications, some in the most prestigious scientific journals, even editorials [4]. In a dedicated, one volume anthology [5], Leff and Rex (2002) presented a wide-ranging overview of the Maxwell’s demon’s life and status, with reprints of important original papers, including an extensive and annotated bibliography with selected citations, with 570 entries in alphabetical and chronological lists. However, the authors [5] chose to emphasize the progress of the MD developments and missed an excellent opportunity to present all alternatives and to encourage due debate, particularly since most of the SL challenges have been resolved in favor of the SL and never against. Therefore, the goal here is not to review the MD literature, but to provide a phenomenological reasoning, independent from scale size and description approach.
Regardless of never-ending obstacles and controversies, but due to many creative and some mystical writings, mostly scattered throughout diverse literature, the MD is still alive, and is a motivation and inspiration for challenging the SL of thermodynamics. Fascination with the demon has accelerated throughout the development of statistical and quantum physics, and information theory. However, the vast majority of scientific community up to now have not been convinced with the “demonologists’ (MD protagonists). 2), it is probable that the same or even higher speed molecule from H will pass back to L in that time period or collide with an oncoming molecule (see dashed arrow line in H). Even higher speed molecules may pass back from H to L, and more probably so if MD was ‘successful by chance’ to separate more high-speed molecules into H. Therefore, ‘just opening the gate’ would ‘more equalize than separate’ by speed, due to simultaneous molecular interactions and interference, see Fig. 3.
Four persisting fallacies of the MD advocates and exorcists are reasoned and presented here, namely:
(i) Overlooking simultaneous interference of other molecules with Maxwell demon’s selected molecule while passing through the gate (Figs. 1, 2 & 3); (ii) Ignoring physical impossibility of processes against the natural forces, e.g., impossibility of ‘free compression’(Fig. 4); (iii) Inappropriate justification of SL validity by compensation elsewhere and later (e.g., let’s justify destruction of entropy locally –alluding spontaneous heat transfer from lower to higher temperature –and compensate it by entropy generation elsewhere and/or later (Fig. 5); and (iv) Inappropriate justification of temp
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