Paper detail

Computational Implementation of Maxwell's Knudsen-Gas Demon and Its Extension to a Two-Dimensional Soft-Disk Fluid

An interesting preprint by Puru Gujrati, "Maxwell's Demon Must Remain Subservient to Clausius' Statement" [ of the Second Law of Thermodynamics ], traces the development and application of Maxwell's Demon. He argues against the Demon on thermodynamic grounds. Gujrati introduces and uses his own version of a generalized thermodynamics in his criticism of the Demon. The complexity of his paper and the lack of any accompanying numerical work piqued our curiousity. The internet provides well over two million "hits'' on the subject of "Maxwell's Demon". There are also hundreds of images of the Demon, superimposed upon a container of gas or liquid. However, there is not so much along the lines of simulations of the Demonic process. Accordingly, we thought it useful to write and execute relatively simple FORTRAN programs designed to implement Maxwell's low-density model and to develop its replacement with global Nosé-Hoover or local purely-Newtonian thermal controls. These simulations illustrate the entropy decreases associated with all three types of Demons.