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Szilard's Perpetuum Mobile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Meir Hemmo  and
Orly Shenker
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Abstract

In a previous article, we have demonstrated by a general phase space argument that a Maxwellian Demon is compatible with statistical mechanics. In this article, we show how this idea can be put to work in the prevalent model of the Demon, namely, a particle-in-a-box, used, for example, by Szilard and Bennett. In the literature, this model is used in order to show that a Demon is incompatible with statistical mechanics, either classical or quantum. However, we show that a detailed phase space analysis of this model illustrates that a Maxwellian Demon is compatible with statistical mechanics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 264 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

This research is supported by the Israel Science Foundation, grant 240/06.

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