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Maxwell's Demon

This is a lino block print 8 inches by 9 inches on Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper. It is the first in a series about the imaginary friends of scientists. We could get flashy and call them gendankenexperiments, but, particularly since they are demons, I think Imaginary Friend is a more apt title.

 

Legendary Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) dreamt up his demon to deal with the very odd 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. He wanted to figure out whether this was a Law or whether a sharp-eyed, nimble-fingered Demon could allow the fastest molecules in a cold reservoir to heat a hotter reservoir and the slowest molecules from the hotter reservoir to cool the cold one.

 

Note his big eyes and nimble fingers; otherwise the Demon bares an uncanny resemblance to Maxwell himself.

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Uploaded on April 26, 2009
Taken on April 25, 2009