C of L49...Maxwell 's Demon: a history

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: <kelber at mindspring.com>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: C of L49...Maxwell 's Demon: a history


>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Maxwell's Demon gets around the Second Law, thwarting entropy. Is 
> entropy(or its social analog,apathy) the "magic, anonymous and malignant, 
> visited on her from outside and for no reason at all" that keeps Oedipa in 
> her tower? Then Tristero = Maxwell's Demon?
>
> Laura
>
> We know Pynchon liked the entropy metaphor---"social analogue, apathy" as 
> LK writes--- A LOT, using it as the title of his prize-winning story. It 
> is lotsa years later in his writing, but in Slow Learner he says he din't 
> know much about it all scientifically.
> Just used for the stories.
>
> So, in Cof L49, as soon as Oedipa learns this new concept--Maxwell's 
> Demon, which sorted but " did no work"---she snaps
> Tell them at the Post Office that sorting isn't work.........


A little reminiscent of GR where Mr. Information is explaining to Skippy how 
the pointsman (another sort of sorter) can accomplish a lot with very little 
work when he pulls the lever sending the colonel to Happyville rather than 
to Pain City.

Sorting (like deciding which path to take at a fork in the road) is a very 
spooky aspect of human existence.  (when we rilly think about it)






>
> Gotta matter A LOT in the context of L49, yes?.....since the Official U.S. 
> Mail is tacitly set against the alternative communication system of The 
> Tristero?.....
>
> More Thots?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>
>>
>>
>>p. 86 hc...I won't link here to wikipedia or anything re JCMaxwell, you 
>>can....I just want to add the personal association of the bearded 
>>Victorian that he was with the bearded Smith Brothers of the famous 
>>coughdrops. (No P connection; thanks for indulging me)
>>
>>He was raised and remained a VERY Christian-believing scientist and was 
>>anti-Darwin's theory.
>>
>>Maxwell is widely acknowledged as the nineteenth century scientist whose 
>>work had the greatest influence on twentieth century physics. His 
>>electromagnetic theory and its associated field equations 'paved the way 
>>for Einstein's special theory of relativity, which established the 
>>equivalence of mass and energy. Maxwell's ideas also ushered in the other 
>>major innovation of 20th century physics, the quantum theory. ----from an 
>>online bio, not wikipedia
>>
>>Maxwell's Demon---wikipedia:
>>Maxwell conceived a thought experiment as a way to explain the statistical 
>>nature of the second law. He described the experiment as follows[2]:
>>... if we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can 
>>follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as 
>>essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to 
>>us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform 
>>temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the 
>>mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost 
>>exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two 
>>portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that 
>>a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, 
>>so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only 
>>the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without 
>>expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in 
>>contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics.
>>
>>Schematic figure of Maxwell's demon
>>In other words, Maxwell imagines one container divided into two parts, A 
>>and B. Both parts are filled with the same gas at equal temperatures and 
>>placed next to each other. Observing the molecules on both sides, an 
>>imaginary demon guards a trapdoor between the two parts. When a 
>>faster-than-average molecule from A flies towards the trapdoor, the demon 
>>opens it, and the molecule will fly from A to B. The average speed of the 
>>molecules in B will have increased while in A they will have slowed down 
>>on average. Since average molecular speed corresponds to temperature, the 
>>temperature decreases in A and increases in B, contrary to the second law 
>>of thermodynamics.
>>
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