Dictionary

Maxwell's demon en · NOUN

Etymology

Named after physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) and demon, and probably from Greek daemon, a mythological being intermediate between gods and men.

Meanings

1. 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.
   • 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. 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 77:

Forms

Relateds

information engine · perpetual motion machine of the second kind

Translations (9)

pl demon Maxwella (Hypothetical creature) · ca dimoni de Maxwell (Hypothetical creature) · hu Maxwell-démon (Hypothetical creature) · ja マクスウェルの悪魔) (Hypothetical creature) · ko 맥스웰의 도깨비 (Hypothetical creature) · de Maxwellscher Dämon (Hypothetical creature) · fi Maxwellin demoni (Hypothetical creature) · cmn 麥克斯韋妖 /麦克斯韦妖 (Hypothetical creature) · es demonio de Maxwell (Hypothetical creature)