Phys.org)—Maxwell's demon, a hypothetical being that appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, has been widely studied since it was first proposed in 1867 by James Clerk Maxwell. But most of these studies have been theoretical, with only a handful of experiments having actually realized Maxwell's demon.
Now in a new paper, physicists have reported what they believe is the first photonic implementation of Maxwell's demon, by showing that measurements made on two light beams can be used to create an energy imbalance between the beams, from which work can be extracted. One of the interesting things about this experiment is that the extracted work can then be used to charge a battery, providing direct evidence of the "demon's" activity. Read more at http://phys.org/news/2016-02-physicists-photonic-maxwell-demon.html Harry
