Maxwell’s Demon is Foiled by Measurement, Not By Memory Erasure.

This paper shows that once we take into account that gas molecules are quantum systems, we find that there is an entropy cost to measuring their positions, and that this is what prevents a Maxwell’s Demon from violating the second law of thermodynamics. The tradition of taking “memory erasure” (originated by Bennett and Landauer) as … Continue reading Maxwell’s Demon is Foiled by Measurement, Not…