BEYOND MAXWELL'S DEMON

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-...on-energy.html
"Maxwell's demon was the invention of Scottish mathematician and
theoretical physicist James Clerk Maxwell, who wanted to contradict
the second law of thermodynamics (although the name was given to the
imaginary being later). This law implies it is not possible to invent
a perfect heat engine able to extract heat from a hot reservoir and
use all the heat to perform work, because some of the heat must be
lost to a cold reservoir. (...) Until now, demonstrating the
conversion of information to energy has been elusive, but University
of Tokyo physicist Masaki Sano and colleagues have succeeded in
demonstrating it in a nano-scale experiment. In a paper published in
Nature Physics they describe how they coaxed a Brownian particle to
travel upwards on a "spiral-staircase-like" potential energy created
by an electric field solely on the basis of information on its
location. The team observed the particle using a high-speed camera.
The particle had some thermal energy and moved in random directions.
When it was moving up the staircase they allowed it to move freely,
but when it moved down the staircase they blocked its movement via a
virtual wall created by an electric field. The virtual wall therefore
acted like a Maxwell’s demon, only allowing the particle to move in
one direction, but not forcing or pushing it."

If a constant-charge parallel-plate capacitor is immersed in water, a
pressure develops between the plates that greatly exceeds the pressure
outside the capacitor plates. (W. Panofsky, M. Phillips, Classical
Electricity and Magnetism, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts,
1962, pp. 112-116). If the capacitor plate is very thin, we can
imagine a sharp drop in pressure across it; then the following
conclusion is unavoidable:

Punching a small hole in the plate will result in an eternal water
flow through the hole, from inside to the outside of the capacitor, in
violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

A few years ago, at the 2002 First International Conference on Quantum
Limits to the Second Law, I called the effect "dynamic equilibrium":

http://link.aip.org/link/?APCPCS/643/430/1
"Two testable paradigms - the system performing two types of
reversible work and the system in dynamical equilibrium - suggest that
perpetuum mobile of the second kind in the presence of an operator is
possible."

The scientific community remained silent and hostile but still from
time to time Panofsky-Phillips pressure leaves scientists speechless:

http://www.physorg.com/news110191847.html
"When exposed to a high-voltage electric field, water in two beakers
climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the
water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the
human eye to defy gravity."

In his 1824 memoire Carnot dealt with two reversible heat engines
which DID NOT INTERACT. In 1850 Clausius used NON-INTERACTING heat
engines again:

http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/Clausius.html
"Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Warme" 1850 Rudolf Clausius: "Carnot
assumed, as has already been mentioned, that the equivalent of the
work done by heat is found in the mere transfer of heat from a hotter
to a colder body, while the quantity of heat remains undiminished. The
latter part of this assumption--namely, that the quantity of heat
remains undiminished--contradicts our former principle, and must
therefore be rejected... (...) It is this maximum of work which must
be compared with the heat transferred. When this is done it appears
that there is in fact ground for asserting, with Carnot, that it
depends only on the quantity of the heat transferred and on the
temperatures t and tau of the two bodies A and B, but not on the
nature of the substance by means of which the work is done. (...) If
we now suppose that there are two substances of which the one can
produce more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of
heat, or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat
from A to B to produce a given quantity of work, we may use these two
substances alternately by producing work with one of them in the above
process. At the end of the operations both bodies are in their
original condition; further, the work produced will have exactly
counterbalanced the work done, and therefore, by our former principle,
the quantity of heat can have neither increased nor diminished. The
only change will occur in the distribution of the heat, since more
heat will be transferred from B to A than from A to B, and so on the
whole heat will be transferred from B to A. By repeating these two
processes alternately it would be possible, without any expenditure of
force or any other change, to transfer as much heat as we please from
a cold to a hot body, and this is not in accord with the other
relations of heat, since it always shows a tendency to equalize
temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to colder
bodies."

NON-INTERACTION means that the work-producing force generated by the
first engine, F1, is independent of the displacement, X2, in the
second engine, and vice versa:

dF1/dX2 = dF2/dX1 = 0

where "d" is the partial derivative symbol. It can be shown that, if
the two reversible heat engines DO INTERACT and the conditions are
isothermal, the equation:

dF1/dX2 = dF2/dX1

is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics (Kelvin's
version). That is, if the partial derivatives dF1/dX2 and dF2/dX1 are
not equal, heat from a single reservoir CAN, cyclically, be converted
into work, in violation to the second law of thermodynamics. This is
the first testable paradigm - "the system performing two types of
reversible work" - referred to above (the second one is "the system in
dynamic equilibrium"). See more in:

http://www.wbabin.net/valev/valev2.pdf

Pentcho Valev

On Nov 19, 2:07*am, Pentcho Valev wrote:

If a constant-charge parallel-plate capacitor is immersed in water, a
pressure develops between the plates that greatly exceeds the pressure
outside the capacitor plates. (W. Panofsky, M. Phillips, Classical
Electricity and Magnetism, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts,
1962, pp. 112-116). If the capacitor plate is very thin, we can
imagine a sharp drop in pressure across it; then the following
conclusion is unavoidable:
Your conclusion is wrong.

Punching a small hole in the plate will result in an eternal water
flow through the hole, from inside to the outside of the capacitor, in
violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
This is not an eternal flow of water. This is not a violation of
the second law of thermodynamics.

A few years ago, at the 2002 First International Conference on Quantum
Limits to the Second Law, I called the effect "dynamic equilibrium":

http://link.aip.org/link/?APCPCS/643/430/1
"Two testable paradigms - the system performing two types of
reversible work and the system in dynamical equilibrium - suggest that
perpetuum mobile of the second kind in the presence of an operator is
possible."
It is not reversible work. There is no heat being transferred. No
energy is being transferred by heat conduction. This is not a heat
engine any more than an electric motor is a heat engine. An electric
current goes in, and the water moves for a short time. However, this
is very far from a perpetual flow.
Energy is being used up. Electric current is flowing through the
water from the socket. The water is heating up in both beakers, not
just one. The electric current is heating the water by performing
work.

The scientific community remained silent and hostile but still from
time to time Panofsky-Phillips pressure leaves scientists speechless:
Panofsky=Phillips pressure is not a violation of the Second Law
of Thermodynamics.

http://www.physorg.com/news110191847.html
"When exposed to a high-voltage electric field, water in two beakers
climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the
water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the
human eye to defy gravity."
1) There is no continuous flow of water being demonstrated since the
water bridge is just "hovering". If there was continuous flow of
water, one beaker would empty and the other fill up.
2) There is an electric current passing through the water bridge.
Thus, work is being done on the water. There is no heat flow between
the two beakers. One beaker is not heating up while the other is
cooling down.
3) The bridge is not perpetual. It falls apart.
4) You are an idiot!

What is the probability that Mr. X looks like Mr. Y? Clearly the prior
(Mr. X and Mr. Y are identified but no additional assumption has been
made about them) probability is virtually zero. This means that for
the argument:

Assumption: Mr. X and Mr. Y are identical twins.
Conclusion: Mr. X looks like Mr. Y.

the combination "false assumption, true conclusion" is virtually
impossible.

Consider an oversimplified presentation of Carnot's 1824 argument:

Assumption: Heat is an indestructible substance (cannot be converted
into work in the heat engine).
Conclusion (prototype of the second law of thermodynamics): The heat
engine X working between the temperatures T1 and T2 is just as
efficient as the heat engine Y working between the same temperatures.

The assumption turned out to be false in the end. Is the prior
probability of the conclusion virtually zero? Is the combination
"false assumption, true conclusion" virtually impossible? Clausius
managed to convince the world that this combination is a fact in
Carnot's argument:

http://www.phs.uoa.gr/~psillos/Publi...es/Caloric.pdf
"Clausius observed that, despite Carnot's being far from proving the
first law of thermodynamics, his theorems were independent of the
faulty assumption that no heat is lost in a Carnot cycle."

If Carnot's conclusion (the prototype of the second law of
thermodynamics) cannot be true, as the analogy with the identical twin
scenario suggests, then Clausius' 1850 argument abandoning Carnot's
false assumption and deducing the precious conclusion from an
alternative assumption, true this time, must be invalid:

http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/Clausius.html
"Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Wärme" 1850 Rudolf Clausius: "Carnot
assumed, as has already been mentioned, that the equivalent of the
work done by heat is found in the mere transfer of heat from a hotter
to a colder body, while the quantity of heat remains undiminished. The
latter part of this assumption--namely, that the quantity of heat
remains undiminished--contradicts our former principle, and must
therefore be rejected... (...) It is this maximum of work which must
be compared with the heat transferred. When this is done it appears
that there is in fact ground for asserting, with Carnot, that it
depends only on the quantity of the heat transferred and on the
temperatures t and tau of the two bodies A and B, but not on the
nature of the substance by means of which the work is done. (...) If
we now suppose that there are two substances of which the one can
produce more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of
heat, or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat
from A to B to produce a given quantity of work, we may use these two
substances alternately by producing work with one of them in the above
process. At the end of the operations both bodies are in their
original condition; further, the work produced will have exactly
counterbalanced the work done, and therefore, by our former principle,
the quantity of heat can have neither increased nor diminished. THE
ONLY CHANGE will occur in the distribution of the heat, since more
heat will be transferred from B to A than from A to B, and so on the
whole heat will be transferred from B to A. By repeating these two
processes alternately it would be possible, WITHOUT ANY EXPENDITURE OF
FORCE OR ANY OTHER CHANGE, to transfer as much heat as we please from
a cold to a hot body, and this is not in accord with the other
relations of heat, since it always shows a tendency to equalize
temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to colder
bodies."

The invalidity of Clausius' 1850 argument comes from an auxiliary
false assumption embodied in "THE ONLY CHANGE" and "WITHOUT ANY
EXPENDITURE OF FORCE OR ANY OTHER CHANGE". In fact, the two-substances
process considered by Clausius presupposes the constant action of an
OPERATOR; this operator constantly and unavoidably undergoes CHANGES,
changes that are absent when heat spontaneously "shows a tendency to
equalize temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to
colder bodies" (Clausius' alternative true assumption). In other
words, the fact that, spontaneously, heat never flows from cold to hot
by no means implies that the operator-driven two-substances process
considered by Clausius is unable to transfer heat from cold to hot.

Pentcho Valev

A better reference to Clausius' 1850 argument:

http://www.mdpi.org/lin/clausius/clausius.htm
"Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Wärme", 1850, Rudolf Clausius: "Carnot
assumed, as has already been mentioned, that the equivalent of the
work done by heat is found in the mere transfer of heat from a hotter
to a colder body, while the quantity of heat remains undiminished. The
latter part of this assumption--namely, that the quantity of heat
remains undiminished--contradicts our former principle, and must
therefore be rejected... (...) It is this maximum of work which must
be compared with the heat transferred. When this is done it appears
that there is in fact ground for asserting, with Carnot, that it
depends only on the quantity of the heat transferred and on the
temperatures t and tau of the two bodies A and B, but not on the
nature of the substance by means of which the work is done. (...) If
we now suppose that there are two substances of which the one can
produce more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of
heat, or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat
from A to B to produce a given quantity of work, we may use these two
substances alternately by producing work with one of them in the above
process. At the end of the operations both bodies are in their
original condition; further, the work produced will have exactly
counterbalanced the work done, and therefore, by our former principle,
the quantity of heat can have neither increased nor diminished. The
only change will occur in the distribution of the heat, since more
heat will be transferred from B to A than from A to B, and so on the
whole heat will be transferred from B to A. By repeating these two
processes alternately it would be possible, without any expenditure of
force or any other change, to transfer as much heat as we please from
a cold to a hot body, and this is not in accord with the other
relations of heat, since it always shows a tendency to equalize
temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to colder
bodies."

Pentcho Valev

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...009.5394v1.pdf
Hans R. Moser
Physics Institute, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190,
CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland
Does the second law of thermodynamics really hold good without
exception?

Such questions are meaningless in the era of Postscientism where the
second law of thermodynamics (version: "Entropy always increases")
both holds "the supreme position among the laws of Nature" and "is
actually a RED HERRING":

http://web.mit.edu/keenansymposium/o...und/index.html
Arthur Eddington: "The law that entropy always increases, holds, I
think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone
points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in
disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for
Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation
- well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your
theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can
give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest
humiliation."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "Snow stands up for the view that exact science is, in its
own right, an essential part of civilisation, and should not merely be
valued for its technological applications. Anyone who does not know
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and is proud of it too, exposes
oneself as a Philistine. Snow's plea will strike a chord with every
physicist who has ever attended a birthday party. But his call for
cultural recognition creates obligations too. Before one can claim
that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a
cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear
what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The
Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half
century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the
British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint
a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the
meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not
settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher
Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations
of the second law as there have been discussions of it (Bridgman 1941,
p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it
continues to attract new efforts at clarification. A recent example is
the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The historian of science and
mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical
development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He
characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal
swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that
physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p.
8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com...html#seventeen
George Orwell: "Doublethink means the power of holding two
contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both
of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories
must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with
reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself
that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it
would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to
be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and
hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since
the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while
retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To
tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any
fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary
again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed,
to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take
account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably
necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to
exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is
tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this
knowledge ; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead
of the truth. (...) It need hardly be said that the subtlest
practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and
know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society,
those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those
who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the
greater the understanding, the greater the delusion ; the more
intelligent, the less sane."

Pentcho Valev