
Professor Maxwell's Duplicitous Demon
The Life and Science of James Clerk Maxwell
- 304 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Asked to name a great physicist, most people would mention Newton or Einstein, Feynman or Hawking. But ask a physicist and there's no doubt that James Clerk Maxwell will be near the top of the list.
Maxwell, an unassuming Victorian Scotsman, explained how we perceive colour. He uncovered the way gases behave. And, most significantly, he transformed the way physics was undertaken in his explanation of the interaction of electricity and magnetism, revealing the nature of light and laying the groundwork for everything from Einstein's special relativity to modern electronics.Along the way, he set up one of the most enduring challenges in physics, one that has taxed the best minds ever since. 'Maxwell's demon' is a tiny but thoroughly disruptive thought experiment that suggests the second law of thermodynamics, the law that governs the flow of time itself, can be broken. This is the story of a groundbreaking scientist, a great contributor to our understanding of the way the world works, and his duplicitous demon.
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Information
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Demonic Interlude I: In which the demon is summoned
- Demonic Interlude II: In which electricity meets magnetism
- Demonic Interlude III: In which atoms become real and heat gets moving
- Demonic Interlude IV: In which the demon’s challenge is posed
- Demonic Interlude V: In which the demon becomes a star
- Demonic Interlude VI: In which the demon suffers a setback
- Demonic Interlude VII: In which the demon’s memory is challenged
- Demonic Interlude VIII: In which the demon lives on to fight another day
- Index
- About the Author
- Also by Brian Clegg
- Copyright