Philosophers of science have found the literature surrounding Maxwell’s demon deeply problematic. This paper explains why, summarizing various philosophical complaints and adding to them. The first part of the paper critically evaluates attempts to exorcise Maxwell’s demon; the second part raises foundational questions about some of the putative demons that are being summoned.

This paper deals with the redaction criticism of a story from Babylonian Talmud, bGit 68b. study aims to distinguish further between diverse sources this complex narrative and differentiate Eastern Western elements that it contains. The conclusion is unusually long in bGitin product late tendentious editing. It based on minimum three once-independent traditions. first told how King Solomon buil...

We describe a minimal model of a quantum Maxwell demon obeying Hamiltonian dynamics. The model is solved exactly, and we analyze its steady-state behavior. We find that writing information to a quantum memory induces a probability current through the demon, which is the quantum analog of the classical Maxwell demon's action. Our model offers a simple and pedagogical paradigm for investigating t...

In order to describe quantum heat engines, here we systematically study isothermal and isochoric processes for quantum thermodynamic cycles. Based on these results the quantum versions of both the Carnot heat engine and the Otto heat engine are defined without ambiguities. We also study the properties of quantum Carnot and Otto heat engines in comparison with their classical counterparts. Relat...

Maxwell's demon explores the role of information in physical processes. Employing information about microscopic degrees of freedom, this "intelligent observer" is capable of compensating entropy production (or extracting work), apparently challenging the second law of thermodynamics. In a modern standpoint, it is regarded as a feedback control mechanism and the limits of thermodynamics are reca...

In 1871, James Clerk Maxwell proposed that a being, able to measure the microscopic parameters of a physical system and act accordingly, might be able to violate the Laws of Thermodynamics. The being became known as Maxwell's Demon. Investigations conducted over the course of a century have placed well-de ned thermodynamic bounds upon the action of Maxwell's demon. It is the purpose of this wor...