All Shook Up: Fluctuations, Maxwell’s Demon and the Thermodynamics of Computation

Entropy

关键词: entropy;    computation;    fluctuations;    Maxwell’s demon;    Landauer’s principle;    thermodynamics;   

DOI  :  10.3390/e15104432

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The most successful exorcism of Maxwell’s demon is Smoluchowski’s 1912 observation that thermal fluctuations would likely disrupt the operation of any molecular-scale demonic machine. A later tradition sought to exorcise Maxwell’s demon by assessing the entropic cost of the demon’s processing of information. This later tradition fails since these same thermal fluctuations invalidate the molecular-scale manipulations upon which the thermodynamics of computation is based. A new argument concerning conservation of phase space volume shows that all Maxwell’s demons must fail.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.