OK, y’all asked for it.
First, for those who are unaware of it, we’ll discuss, in oversimplifed terms, Maxwell’s Demons theory.
Originally a thought experiment conducted by James Maxwell in 1867, it had to do with theoretical violations of the second law of thermodynamics. It has since been used, by physicists and others, to explain the observed violation of that law.
Here’s how to visualize it. If you take a semi-permeable membrane, molecules in solution will move from the area of highest concentration to lowest. So, if you have fresh water on one side and salt water on the other, the salty water will osmose to the fresh. Hot water will osmose to the cold.
Y’all taking notes? There will be a quiz on Friday.
Ultimately, we’re talking about the laws controlling entropy, but that’s too confusing for a food message board.
Now comes the kicker. Every once in a while the direction of flow is reversed. A cold water molecule will move to the hot side, or a fresh molecule to the salty side. There is, even today, no explanation for this phenomenon.
Enter Maxwell’s Demons.
If you magnify the membrane umpty ump times, you’ll see that it resembles a cargo net. Each opening in the net is a gate, controlled by a ***** who sits there directing traffic. Every once in a while a ***** falls down on the job, and let’s a molecule escape in the wrong direction.
Still with me? This will count as 1/3 of your midterm grade.
The thing to understand is that scientists find it embarrassing to say “I dunno.” So Maxwell’s Demons is used, quite seriously, to explain the inexplicable.
Now we jump ahead a hundred and ten years or so. It’s the late 1970s. I’m editing Package Engineering magazine at the time, and monitoring the food scientists who are experimenting to find a plastic container that will safely hold carbonated beverages, like pop and beer. Acrylonitrile (don’t count on my spelling) was the great white hope, as I recall.
But there was a controversy over free monomers, and the possibility of them migrating into the drinks---in which case they would, by FDA definition, have been either contaminants or adulterants.
Mind you, nobody was really sure whether 1. free monomers actually existed, or, if they did, 2. whether they migrated into the contents. But, by gawd, we’re from the gubmint, and we’ve got to protect everyone from dangers real or imagined. It reached the point where Congress was conducting hearings on the subject.
Called as a witness was Dr. Gilbert, whose first name escapes me at the moment. Dr. Gilbert was high up in (maybe even headed) the food science department at Rutgers University.
In front of God, a packed visitors balcony, and the entire Ooo Ess Congress, Dr. Gilbert first explains Maxwell's Demons theory, then maintains that even if there are free monomers produced they cannot migrate into the contents because Maxwell’s Demons will stop them at the gates.
Goodness gracious! Can you imagine! Congresses Dignity, with a capital D, would be put in jeopardy if word ever got out that they listened to a witness talk, straight facedly, about ******* control of a scientific question.
So, next morning, the Congressional Record (which is most emphatically not a true record, because anything that goes into it can (and most often is) edited and revised by any congressmen who wishes to do so), reported not on Maxwell’s Demons, but on a phenomenon it called “the Gilbert effect,” in which migration was a one-way street.
Phewwwww! I warned you it was a long, boring tale.
And if anyone, God forbid, really wants to know about James Maxwell and his demons, just google "maxwell's demons." But don't blame me if you do.
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