The cost of forgetting. (quantum physics' answer to "Maxwell's demon")(Science and Technology)
Economist (US), The, December, 1997
Scientists have determined that a perfectly efficient engine is not possible even when considering the problem from the perspective of quantum mechanics. James Clark Maxwell posed the question in 1871 and it was answered using conventional physics in 1981.
"MAXWELL'S demon" is the name of a "thought experiment" that has been scrambling some of the world's best-ordered minds since being planted there in 1871 by the great Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell. He wondered, as great physicists are wont to do, whether it was possible (just in principle, you understand) to build a perfectly efficient engine-one, in other words, that would extract energy from the random motions of the molecules in the air, and use it to do useful work without producing any waste....
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