Maxwell's demon

English

Etymology

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

Noun

Maxwell’s demon (plural Maxwell's demons)

1. A hypothetical creature created for 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.

Translations

Hypothetical creature

• Catalan: dimoni de Maxwell m
• Finnish: Maxwellin demoni
• Hungarian: Maxwell-démon
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Korean: 맥스웰의 도깨비 (Meakswelui dok'ebi)
• Spanish: demonio de Maxwell m

See also

• Second_law_of_thermodynamics on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
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