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Letter: Demon-slaying

Published 14 November 2012

From Bernard Liengme

I am sure that US physicist Charles Bennett had a very sophisticated way of dismissing Maxwell’s Demon (13 October, p 32). But I still enjoy the rationale given by my professor, F.C. Tompkins of Imperial College London: “The demon must eat to do the work, eating is essentially converting glucose to CO2 and H2O plus heat, and that, gentlemen [he always ignored the two women in the chemistry class of 1957-1960], generates entropy: QED.”

Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada

Issue no. 2891 published 17 November 2012

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