Maxwell's Demon

In a recent paper Stud. Hist. Philos. Mod. Phys. 36, 355 2005 it is argued that to properly understand the thermodynamics of Landauer’s principle it is necessary to extend the concept of logical operations to include indeterministic operations. Here we examine the thermodynamics of such operations in more detail, extending the work of Landauer to include indeterministic operations and to include logical states with variable entropies, temperatures, and mean energies. We derive the most general statement of Landauer’s principle and prove its universality, extending considerably the validity of previous proofs. This confirms conjectures made that all logical operations may, in principle, be performed in a thermodynamically reversible fashion, although logically irreversible operations would require special, practically rather difficult, conditions to do so. We demonstrate a physical process that can perform any computation without work requirements or heat exchange with
the environment. Many widespread statements of Landauer’s principle are shown to be special cases of our generalized principle.

The glass of science is half empty. Researchers across the globe are fixated on all that we do not know yet. Everyonce in a while, progress
arrives. Ah ha! Something clicks in someone’s head. Everything
falls into place. The result is nothing short of magical. The gap between knowledge and imagination is not as inscrutable as it has been made to appear. It is consequential long after the moment when these
first ideas evaporate and practical concerns take over.

By previewing a world of wonders long before the curtains are drawn
and the show begins, we can sit in on the rehearsal of our own scientific
and technological future. The antechamber of discovery is a place where
ideas are forged before they see the light of day. It is the incubator that
shapes science before it is tested. When the spectacle of our achievements
includes the trials and tribulations that led to them, knowledge
looks different.

: In his PhD dissertation in the early 1970s, the Mexican-Israeli theoretical physicist Jacob Bekenstein developed the thermodynamics of black holes using a generalized version of the second law of thermodynamics. This work made it possible for physicists to describe and analyze black holes using information-theoretical concepts. It also helped to transform information theory into a fundamental and foundational concept in theoretical physics. The story of Bekenstein’s work—which was opposed by many scientists, including Stephen Hawking—highlights the transformation within physics towards an information-oriented scientific mode of theorizing.  This “informational turn” amounted to a mild-mannered revolution within physics, revolutionary without being rebellious.

The efficiency of bio-molecular motors stems from reversible interactions ∼ k B T; weak bonds stabilizing intermediate states (enabling direct conversion of chemical into mechanical energy). For their (unknown) origins, we suggest that a magnetically structured phase (MSP) formed via accretion of superparamagnetic particles (S-PPs) during serpentinization (including magnetite formation) of igneous rocks comprising the Hadean Ocean floor, had hosted motor-like diffusion of ligand-bound S-PPs through its ‘template’-layers. Ramifications range from optical activity to quantum coherence. A gentle flux gradient offers both detailed-balance breaking non-equilibrium and asymmetry to a magnetic dipole, undergoing infinitesimal spin-alignment changes. Periodic perturbation of this background by local H-fields of templatepartners can lead to periodic high and low-template affinity states, due to the dipole’s magnetic degree of freedom. An accompanying magnetocaloric effect allows interchange between system-entropy and bath temperature. We speculate on a magnetic reproducer in a setting close to the submarine hydrothermal mound-scenario of Russell and coworkers that could evolve bio-ratchets.

In this paper we demonstrate that Maxwell’s Demon is compatible with quantum statistical mechanics, in both collapse interpretations (such as GRW) and no-collapse interpretations, including the usual postulates concerning probability measures and the past hypothesis. In particular, the so-called Landauer-Bennett thesis is no obstacle to the Demon, since it is in fact not a theorem of quantum mechanics (as shown by Earman and Norton 1999) and is false in classical mechanics (as we have shown in 2013). This complements our previous proofs (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016) that the Demon is compatible with classical statistical mechanics. These proofs raise the question of whether the second law of thermodynamics is indeed a law of nature, if mechanics - either classical or quantum - it taken to be the paradigmatic laws of nature.

We are now confronted with a new type of uncanny experience, an uncanny
evoked by parallel processing, aggregate data, and cloud-computing. The
digital uncanny does not erase the uncanny feeling we experience as déjà
vu or when confronted with robots that are too lifelike. Today's uncanny
refers to how non-human devices (surveillance technologies, algorithms,
feedback, and data flows) anticipate human gestures, emotions, actions,
and interactions, thus intimating that we are but machines and that our
behavior is predicable precisely because we are machinic. It adds
another dimension to those feelings in which we question whether our
responses are subjective or automated - automated as in reducing one's
subjectivity to patterns of data and using those patterns to present
objects or ideas that would then elicit one's genuinely subjective-yet
effectively preset-response. In fact, this anticipation of our responses
is a feedback loop that we humans have produced by designing software
that can study our traces, inputs, and moves. In this sense one could
say that the digital uncanny is a trick we play on ourselves, a trick
that we would not be able to play had we not developed sophisticated
digital technologies. /Digital Uncanny /explores how digital
technologies, particularly software systems working through massive
amounts of data, are transforming the meaning of the uncanny that Freud
tied to a return of repressed memories, desires, and experiences to
their anticipation. Through a close reading of interactive and
experimental art works of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Bill Viola, Simon Biggs,
Sue Hawksley, and Garth Paine, this book is designed to explore how the
digital uncanny unsettles and estranges concepts of "self," "affect,"
"feedback" and "aesthetic experience," forcing us to reflect on our
relationship with computational media and by extension our relationship
to each other and our experience of the world.

"We've experimentally confirmed the connection between information in the classical case and the quantum case," Murch said, "and we're seeing this new effect of information loss." [19] It's well-known that when a quantum system is continuously measured, it freezes, i.e., it stops changing, which is due to a phenomenon called the quantum Zeno effect. [18] Physicists have extended one of the most prominent fluctuation theorems of classical stochastic thermodynamics, the Jarzynski equality, to quantum field theory. [17] In 1993, physicist Lucien Hardy proposed an experiment showing that there is a small probability (around 6-9%) of observing a particle and its antiparticle interacting with each other without annihilating—something that is impossible in classical physics. [16] Scientists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, recently reengineered their data processing, demonstrating that 16 million atoms were entangled in a one-centimetre crystal. [15] The fact that it is possible to retrieve this lost information reveals new insight into the fundamental nature of quantum measurements, mainly by supporting the idea that quantum measurements contain both quantum and classical components. [14] Researchers blur the line between classical and quantum physics by connecting chaos and entanglement. [13] Yale University scientists have reached a milestone in their efforts to extend the durability and dependability of quantum information. [12] Using lasers to make data storage faster than ever. [11] Some three-dimensional materials can exhibit exotic properties that only exist in "lower" dimensions. For example, in one-dimensional chains of atoms that emerge within a bulk sample, electrons can separate into three distinct entities, each carrying information about just one aspect of the electron's identity—spin, charge, or orbit. The spinon, the entity that carries information about electron spin, has been known to control magnetism in certain insulating materials whose electron spins can point in any direction and easily flip direction. Now, a new study just published in Science reveals that spinons are also present in a metallic material in which the orbital movement of electrons around the atomic nucleus is the driving force behind the material's strong magnetism. [10] Currently studying entanglement in condensed matter systems is of great interest. This interest stems from the fact that some behaviors of such systems can only be explained with the aid of entanglement. [9] Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the University of Cambridge in the UK have demonstrated that it is possible to directly generate an electric current in a magnetic material by rotating its magnetization. [8] This paper explains the magnetic effect of the electric current from the observed effects of the accelerating electrons, causing naturally the experienced changes of the electric field potential along the electric wire. The accelerating electrons explain not only the Maxwell Equations and the Special Relativity, but the Heisenberg Uncertainty Relation, the wave particle duality and the electron's spin also, building the bridge between the Classical and Quantum Theories. The changing acceleration of the electrons explains the created negative electric field of the magnetic induction, the changing relativistic mass and the Gravitational Force, giving a Unified Theory of the physical forces. Taking into account the Planck Distribution Law of the electromagnetic oscillators also, we can explain the electron/proton mass rate and the Weak and Strong Interactions.

In this paper we describe an apparent paradox concerning a moving plate capacitor driven by thermal noise from a resistor. The plates are attracted together, but a demon restores the plates of the capacitor to their original position when the voltage across the capacitor is small—hence only small forces are present for the demon to work against. The demon has to work harder than this to avoid the situation of perpetual motion, but the open question is how? This is unsolved, however we explore the concept of a moving plate capacitor by examining the case where it is still excited by thermal noise, but where the restoring force on the capacitor plates is provided by a simple spring rather than some unknown demon. We display simulation results with interesting behavior, particularly where the capacitor plates collide with each other. We consider open problems in the modeling of a noisy moving plate capacitor from the thermodynamic and fluctuational viewpoint. This is of interest to microelec-tromechanical systems, such as in the modeling of the behavior of a microaccelerometer, and is also of general interest to the modeling of fluctuating systems.

The Szilard Engine has been used to suggest that the impossibility of an effective Maxwellian Demon is guaranteed by Landauer’s Principle in the thermodynamics of computation.
Critics suggest that the argument is circular, as Landauer’s Principle itself rests upon the assumption that the Second Law is inviolate, and so the impossibility of a Maxwellian Demon remains suspect. We suggest that the correct understanding is that both the failure of the Szilard Engine and the basis of Landauer’s Principle are direct, and equivalent, consequences of Hamiltonian dynamics and the normal statistical mechanical assumptions regarding microscopic correlations.