Walker I
Acta Biotheor. 1976;25(2-3):103-10. doi: 10.1007/BF00047321.
Boltzmann's gas model representing the second law of thermodynamics is based on the improbability of certain molecular distributions in space. Maxwell argued that a hypothetical 'being' with the faculty of seeing individual molecules (Maxwell's Demon) could bring about such improbable distributions, thus violating the law of entropy. However, it appears that to render the molecules visible for any observer would increase the entropy more than the demon could decrease it, hence 'Maxwell's Demon cannot operate' (Brillouin, 1951). In the study presented here Maxwell's Demon is interpreted in a general way as a biological observer system within (possibly closed) systems which can upset thermodynamic probabilities provided that the relative magnitudes between observer system and observed system are appropriate. Maxwell's Demon within Boltzmann's Gas Model thus appears only as a special case of inappropriate, relative magnitude between the two systems.
代表热力学第二定律的玻尔兹曼气体模型基于空间中某些分子分布的不可几性。麦克斯韦认为，一个具有观察单个分子能力的假想“存在”（麦克斯韦妖）能够产生这种不可几的分布，从而违反熵定律。然而，对于任何观察者而言，要使分子可见所增加的熵似乎比妖能够减少的熵更多，因此“麦克斯韦妖无法运作”（布里渊，1951年）。在本文所呈现的研究中，麦克斯韦妖被广义地解释为（可能封闭的）系统内的一个生物观察者系统，只要观察者系统与被观察系统之间的相对大小合适，该系统就能打乱热力学概率。因此，玻尔兹曼气体模型中的麦克斯韦妖仅表现为两个系统之间相对大小不合适的一个特殊情况。
