Question

The physical world around us behaves as it does partly because it’s made of a huge number of tiny molecules, each behaving randomly. In the 1800’s, the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell imagined that seemingly non-random things would happen on a random basis in our real world. The fastest-moving molecules would occasionally all find themselves in one part of a water glass and begin to boil, while the slower ones, left to themselves for a bit, would freeze elsewhere in the glass. Or, at some point, all the molecules in a room would randomly be moving in just one direction, rather than every which way. The term associated with such weird hypothetical scenarios is “Maxwell’s demon.” Explain why you think we don’t see weird things like this happen, on a random basis in real life. Imagine this randomly weird world for a minute. Describe something that would make it very difficult (or at least interesting) to live in a “Maxwell’s demon” world.

Answer 1

I don't think that "Maxwell's demon" is possible to happen. Take for example a boiling water poured in a glass and cold water poured in the same glass. They each have different temperatures but when they are put together in the same container, the boiling water releases its energy and absorbs some coldness of the cold water and vice versa. In the end, the water temperature will be the average temperature of both types of water. Boiling water and cold water in the same container can never keep their original temperature. It just is not possible. Even if there is a glass partition to separate these waters, heat and coldness will still be transferred between the two through the glass partition.