• @turmacar
    link
    English
    330 days ago

    Next up, Maxwell.

    Turns out the secret to defeating entropy was demons all along.

    • Queen HawlSera
      link
      fedilink
      English
      130 days ago

      Not familiar with that one and I’m way too high right now to read an explanation.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        530 days ago

        tl;dr Maxwell’s Demon is a thought experiment where an imaginary demon lets only hot molecules into a hot room and cold into a cold room (from each other), thereby violating thermodynamics.


        Maxwell’s demon, a thought experiment of chambers filled with hot and cold gas, connected by a microscopic trapdoor.

        Thermodynamics/statistics shows that on average hot particles will go from the hotter side to the colder more than vice versa, gradually evening things out. That’s increase of entropy (increase of ‘disorder’, because there’s less ‘order’ of the separation between hot and cold regions.)

        Maxwell’s demon sits at the trapdoor and opens it only for hot particles from the cold side to go to the hot side, and cold ones from the hot side to go to the cold side. So the separation gets more; entropy decreases. But the demon apparently isn’t increasing entropy elsewhere or expending non-negligible energy.

        Therefore violating thermodynamics which, I think Einstein famously said, is basically the only physical law you can be completely certain won’t be violated.

        • Queen HawlSera
          link
          fedilink
          English
          0
          edit-2
          30 days ago

          I think I’m too dumb to get it in general…

          But I do hope that one day we can rewrite all the laws of the universe and invent God, that’s the dream. To one day have a world where anything is possible. Till then we are stuck with the laws of physics.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            129 days ago

            God is just E=mc^2

            If you can attain enough energy to convert it into mass, you are all-powerful.