Maxwell's Demon Soon A Reality? 148
DMiax writes "Reuters reports that a group of scientists from University of Edimburgh may have realized a nanomolecular engine - a Maxwell's Demon. The device selects and traps other molecules based on their direction of motion. Physicist James Maxwell first imagined the nano-scale device in 1867, and the research team cites him as the basis for their understanding of how lights, heat, and molecules interact. The device is powered by light, and may spur advances in nano-scale technology to new heights in coming years."
Possible to make unlimited energy? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Possible to make unlimited energy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Possible to make unlimited energy? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Possible to make unlimited energy? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Article (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously, the article irresistably leads to a discussion of Maxwell's Demon, and how this machine highlights the thermodynamic principles that were uncovered during the examination of that wonderfully subtle and insightful thought experiment. But it definitely doesn't mean that Maxwell's Demon may be a reality than machines that exploit relativistic effects suggest that we'll be able to ride around on beams of light, as in Einstein's thought experiment. Or that we'll be able to create superpositions of alive cats and dead cats (the hot new Valentine's gift for 2007 -- all the furriness and half the upkeep!)
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Kitty (Score:4, Funny)
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Now, as for my question, did you have a relevant comment to add?
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"the conservation of energy is a consequence of invariance under time translations" [wikipedia.org].
This is a specific result of Noether's theorem, and has been known since the 1920's but rarely gets mentioned in the popular press. For the specfic case of energy conservation, Noether's theorem implies that unless the form of the Lagrangian (the fundamental mathematical object underlying the equations of motion that govern a system) is explicitly time-d
It's neat, but it's not Maxwell's Demon (Score:5, Informative)
This tech is certainly a mechanism for such sorting, but it's powered by external light, so the entropy of the system has not decreased and the second law isn't violated. So, while it's mechanically similar to Maxwell's Demon, it's dissimilar in concept (or should I say, "in spirit" - we're talking about demons, after all).
Of course, TFA doesn't have Leigh claiming that they've come up with Maxwell's Demon, just that he "credits Maxwell for establishing the fundamentals for understanding how light, heat and molecules behave."
None of this is to say that this isn't an impressive feat, and of obvious value in terms of furthering the science/technology of nanomachines, but calling it Maxwell's Demon is missing the whole point of the original thought experiment.
[this text added to waste time between hitting reply and submit]
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You're right, the naming is all wrong (Score:3, Funny)
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Perhaps "Maxwell's rubber" might catch on...
Maxwell's Demon is overrated (Score:2)
This is another artefact of science history that does not belong to science in any way, like epicycles of Ptolemy, aether, calorique (thermogen), stone of philosophers and other crap.
Light coming in? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Light coming in? (Score:5, Informative)
But then, TFA doesn't have Leigh saying that it is Maxwell's Demon, just that he credits Maxwell with furthering science.
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There's a nice quote from the article:
"As Maxwell had predicted long ago, it does not need energy because it is powered by light."
If light is not energy (or more exactly, does not carry energy), then I conclude that solar cells are violating the first law (because solar cells are powered by light and output energy).
However, for being an entropy-decreasing Maxwell's Demon it would suffice that there's no energy transfer from the light to the gas (o
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It's all a matter of being extremely nearsighted.
Well, I got to go back to my sorting.
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Maxwell's demon could sort a mixed bag of apples and oranges into two bags of apples only and oranges only while preserving an apples and oranges system.
If you sort a bag of apples and oranges the system is one of a
Ah, I love mass media science reporting (Score:5, Funny)
Medicinal Uses (Score:1)
Then we can sit in front of our computers all day long eating cheesy nacho's and injecting ourselves with nano fat collectors.
Mmmmm... nachos [douginadress.com].
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No - that's a bicycle :)
It's actually pleasantly surprising to see a press article titled nanotechnology which is actually on the topic. Drexler et al were not talking about sub-micron particles in toothpaste when they used the term.
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"Oohhh, jeeez my chest feels like it's on fire"
"You're probably just getting over a heart-attack... drink some milkshake, it'll cool ya down"
---
speaking of milkshake [douginadress.com]
Now this... (Score:3, Funny)
I thought.. (Score:4, Interesting)
In the classical example, the Daemon sits at a gate between two chambers, where both are filled with particles of random velocities. When a slow particle approaches from the left or a fast one from the right, the Daemon keeps the gate shut. When a fast one approaches from the left or a slow from the right, however, the Daemon opens the gate and lets the particle pass, thus passively generating a gradient of slow/fast particles.
As to its 'energy from nothing' nature, it's been shown that the actual switching could occur with zero energy use, but (I believe) the act of resetting the Daemon's velocity measurement device would require some energy.
Long story short, the reason that the idea of a Maxwell's Daemon is important is not because it's a nanomechanical switch, but because it was thought to be an anti-entropic system with no energy use. The actual action that the Daemon was performing is quite irrelevant, and so I take offense at the title of this story. That's all.
Re:I thought.. (Score:4, Funny)
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Hell?
I mean, if the demon is performing an action, and it's not taking energy from the system in order to do so, then what? Might as well say, "any perpetual motion machine can be made to work... with magic".
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WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
"it does not need energy because it is powered by light."
As I understand it, the object the demon works on has to be isolated from the universe. If this 'demon' is powered by light, its not isolated, because outside influences are acting on it.
I think maxwell's thought experiment still stands, thanks come again.
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Nanotechnology (Score:5, Interesting)
So far, the biggest impact of nanotechnology on society is that society is full of geeks who swoon at the idea of nanotechnology being the future. Why are so many nerds just dying for the nanotechnology future to get here? What's wrong with the present?
I thought the inspiration for nanotechnology came from Sci-Fi books and Star Trek. Now Harry Potter is the big inspiration?
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There was some quote in reference to writing sci-fi by some author. Can't remember the source.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
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You mean from a Sci-Fi book?
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Why are people talking about alternative fuels? Why do people worry about a sustainable future? What's wrong with sticking with oil?
Why are so many people fascinated by space travel? Fuck going into space. What's wrong with Earth?
Why are so many techies talking about new hardware? What's wrong with the computer you have? What more you could possibly want?
You're right. Today is perfect. I hope nobody ever events anything new ever again. That wouldn't be cool at all.
What's the matter with you?
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Strawman alert! I never said today is perfect. I merely asked a question. The implied meaning took place entirely in your mind. You just got trolled!
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In fact, here's a comic someone made that touches on this point:
http://www.xkcd.com/c169.html [xkcd.com]
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That straw man sure says a lot of things on my behalf.
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:4, Insightful)
But since the present actually exists, we can see its problems. As freaking awesome as it is, it is still far from perfect.
But the future doesn't actually exist as anything but our dreams. So, natually, it has no problems. So the future is even awesomer, and the present sucks to the extent that it doesn't live up to my awesome future dreams.
People who have actually taken a look at the future in a clear-eyed way say it'll still have problems, and it's still anybody's guess as to whether they'll be bigger or smaller than the problems of today. Still, since staying in the present doesn't really seem to be an option, it seems we'll find out. One thing's for sure, we won't be jumping straight to a mystical paradise anytime soon.
In the meantime... enjoy what is here and what you have. If you're certain the present sucks, it will... for you. Why add the misery of thinking everything sucks more than it actually does to the still-real misery that life often offers you?
The present is awesome (Score:2)
Of course, the future has been worse as well. When I grew up, it seemed like the most likely future consisted of cockroaches ruling over a radioactive Earth.
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Because in the future we will have much better tools for creating a better future.
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Because full blown nanotechnology means you can pretty much BitTorrent real objects. You just download the datafile for an object, and everything from food to cars to computers to houses could be created at will for everyone virtually for free - grown out of raw dirt and solar energy. You could even BitTorrent a RealDoll [realdoll.com] for example.... not that that is particularly relevant to why so many nerds just dy
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Neither. If you have to have a single source inspiration, it would have to be Richard Feynman, 1959.
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html [zyvex.com] was the first search hit on Google.
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Dying is a big part of it. To me, the most exciting nanotech applications are medical. When you get down to that scale, you can send your little robots in and they can perform DNA repairs on individal cells. You don't have to worry about arteriolsclerosis anymore because little machines can just drive in through an IV, collect the fatty deposits on the blood vessel walls, and leave with them through another. Cancer is easy to fix
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Thanks for the straightforward answer. I was aware that death was a big part of the motivation. It's certainly something I've agonized over in the past as much as anyone. Maybe even more. But since then I've learned that death is, in fact, not something to fear. Here is one book [amazon.com] which puts it better than I am able to, and it isn't sci-fi or fantasy. If, 10, 20, 50 years from now, we can continue to expand our lifespan, that would be neat and everything, but I don't think it's sensible to view life extension
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I don't know that I exactly fear death so much as that there are a lot more things that I want to do than I can get
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Well, it's actually cool that you say you don't want Nirvana. Religion is like psychotherapy, and Buddhism in particular I think, in that it's a temporary medicine for people who feel like they need something more or something's missing. And I find it interesting that nanotechnology attracts the same kind of audience (example [imminst.org]).
I was attracted to Buddhism also, but I sensed that it was full of a lot of crap about "eightfold path" and "realms of existence" and stuff. But it eventually led me to meditation a
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Nanotech is probably also necessary for the level of space colonization that medical immortality would eventually necessitate.
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In the present, you have to make a conscious effort to exercise in order to maintain a healthy weight. In the present, you need to modify your diet in order to lower your cholesterol. In the present, cancer kills you before you even know it's there (or short
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Four books? Yikes. Couldn't you just sum them up for me? I see they're fantasy and not Sci-Fi... Do they fall into the Harry Potter-side of the inspiration?
Edinburgh - Not Edimburgh (Score:1)
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Of course you will not notice this in the name of every city. Londres + London for instance still gives London
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BTM
Off Topic - But WTF is Opinion Center Intel (Score:4, Informative)
Mabye there's a place to make a comment or complaint about this, but it wasn't obvious so I posted it here.
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Cowboy Neal's Demon (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, such a thing can never happen in real life, so it's all theoretical.
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Cue the greasemonkey in 3, 2...
Oh, and the current story in there is Give Intel a Piece of Your Mind [slashdot.org], go on... do it.
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Not actually a Maxwell Demon... (Score:5, Informative)
The reason that such a demon cannot be created is that the very act of making an observation (of a gas molecule's trajectory, for instance), requires the usage of energy. And on the scale we're talking about, that usage of energy is exactly the 'work' you are doing to raise the temperature of the gas in sorting the molecules. Thus no such thing as a maxwell demon can be made, and thermodynamics is intact.
This most recent report, as stated, requires an input of energy to move/sort molecules. Thus it doesn't violate thermodynamics and it's not really a Maxwell Demon. The article seems a bit confused on this issue, stating:
I would content that the light is an input of energy, and thus saying "it does not need energy" is rather silly.
In any case, the actual research (see David Leigh's page [ed.ac.uk]) is about photo-activated molecular shuttles: molecules that switch between well-defined states with input of light. You can thus trap or move other molecules using light. Certainly one step towards the much-anticipated "nanotechnology" but not quite the fine control of molecular positions one would imagine when using the term "Maxwell Demon."
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Re:Not actually a Maxwell Demon... (Score:4, Interesting)
The argument would be the same with massive objects. If you attempt to devise a way to generate a low-entropy situation using "massive moving objects" then I assure you that there will be a corresponding increase in entropy elsewhere that will offset it. (Remember that a fast-moving object has high kinetic energy, but this doesn't say much about the entropy of the system it is a part of.)
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You're right, and thermodynamics tells us these things are related. If you can find a way to reverse the flow of entropy, that's a way of creating "useful energy" out of "useless energy". Thus you could create electricity using just the ambient temperature around you. But, since thermod
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This is related to the Von Neumann-Landauer limit [wikipedia.org] which specifies how much heat you have to dissipate to reset your Maxwell's Demon to a pristine state after it has made a decision. This in turn is related to Reversable Computing, which seeks to improve the energy efficiency of computers by avoiding such resets wherever practical.
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Yes, and according to some, it will be achieved when scientists dump a bunch of concrete spheres into a mud volcano in the nearish future.
It's not Edimburgh (Score:1)
But can it play the guitar? (Score:1)
His other not-so-famous work (Score:5, Funny)
This would totally change the world in the short term by finally providing a means to mass-produce holy water, and eventually even purifying the entire world of 'evil' particles (ie collect all the hateful particles together, send them up on the 'space elevator to heaven' and launch into the void).
Re:His other not-so-famous work (Score:5, Funny)
-Isaac
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Leading to the eventual clash between us and whatever planet our huge ball of quantum-mechanically perfect evil lands on.
Which would be sweet. This is the best plan ever.
Consider (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider Maxwell's Demon operating on entire galaxies at a time. An infinitely large mass (typified as a black hole) has a much larger gravitational field than a mass which is one iota less than infinitely large. If Maxwell's Demon were a gravitational capacitor (ie. its effect is only realized when the gravitional field resulting from a mass exceeds a certain level but exhibits no behavior up to one iota less than that gravitational field) then the Demon could, possibly, move out of the way and selectively allow the object of infinite mass (eg. a black hole) to pass while reflecting all objects of lesser mass.
I first proposed a similar theory years ago when working for Abbott Laboratories.
That's interesting (Score:1)
Start command (Score:2, Funny)
Forget thermodynamics, is the command to start the demon /etc/init.d/maxwell start?
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Process Therminated.
Lack of diagrams (Score:5, Funny)
Here it is:
.
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=EO3=
Good news for nanosports fans! (Score:1)
How it works (Score:2, Informative)
In layman's terms this is how the ratchet works. First, the molecule is essentially a dumbbell with a ring around it. The ring can move freely back and forth across the dumbbell, but prefers to be at either end. The dumbbell can be bent only near one end, which pr
What? No one else thought of Velvet Goldmine? (Score:2)
Mister, show me the way to earth
The boys of Quadrant 44 with their vicious metal hounds
Never come around here no more
Sometimes I wonder if I'm still alive
Six feet down at age 25
Maxwell Leather Demon rock hand jive
I came down like water
For the age of solar
Hail to the father
Kiss your sons and daughters
Goodbye goodbye
Steam steady roller
Lady tongue controller
Ten feet tall, better walk it back down
Despite the great duress, always get off 'cause damn it!
It's the onl
Maxwell's Demon? (Score:1)
Obligatory Simpson's quote (Score:5, Funny)
Boring (Score:2)
Also, that has got to be the stupidest headline slashdot ever carried. What's next, "Chinese Room built, undergoing testing"?
MAxwell's Demon using lasers and cold atoms (Score:2)
http://graduateadvisor.physics.tamu.edu/talk/2006
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Doesn't make my day.... (Score:2)
Now when someone builds a 25,374 atom Worm Drive Assembly [1] -- then I'll be impressed.
1. http://www.nanoengineer-1.com/mambo/index.php?opti on=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=57 [nanoengineer-1.com]
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