Study explains how Maxwell's demon uses mutual information to extract work
Monday, August 4, 2014 - 08:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) —Maxwell's demon, the hypothetical doorman that controls how particles travel between two chambers in an attempt to decrease entropy, is at its heart a feedback-controlled system. The demon makes measurements on the microscopic state of the system, stores the measurement outcomes in its memory, and uses the information as a kind of "thermodynamic fuel" to extract work from the system.