Information Engines and the Second Law
Ben Schumacher
Department of Physics, Kenyon College
Maxwell's demon, which extracts work from a thermodynamic system by
acquiring information about it, has for more than a century been
a favorite thought-experiment in the foundations of statistical physics.
The demon has variously been viewed as a threat, an exception, an exemplar,
and a means for extending the Second Law. I will describe a new formulation
of thermodynamics in which such "information engines" play the central role,
giving new insights about entropy, information erasure, the meaning
of temperature, and the connection between fluctuation and dissipation.
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