Always tease tease tease
For the first time, scientists have converted information into pure energy, experimentally verifying a thought experiment first proposed 150 years ago.
The idea was originally formulated by physicist James Clerk Maxwell, but it gained controversy because it appeared to violate the second law of thermodynamics. Put in experimental terms, this law states that when hot and cold water are mixed, they will eventually reach an equilibrium middling temperature.
Maxwell proposed that a hypothetical being (later dubbed Maxwell’s demon) could separate the water into two compartments and reverse the process, isolating hot molecules from cold by letting only the hotter-than-average through a trap-door between the compartments.
Because mixed water is considered more disordered (i.e. of higher entropy) than separated water, the demon has converted a system from a state of disorder to a state of order, using only information (the knowledge of which molecules were hot and cold).
photo { Boru O’Brien O’Connell }
