It is only a what if, though. There is no known mechanism that would actually perform the proposed action, and certainly not without requiring its own amount of energy to operate which would inherently add to the entropy in that system. In fact, no such mechanism is possible. And if it turned out that it were, the presence and functionality of that mechanism would upend a good deal of physics as we know it.
So that’s why it’s still a thought experiment and not a practical one.
We already have devices that can move energy from one side of a system to another (Peltiers, heat pumps, etc.) but they inherently consume energy and in so doing produce waste heat, because that’s how the universe works.
Right, but at the time they weren’t sure of that. It’s like how Freud spawned modern psychology, by people insisting he was wrong and stupid and then proving just how wrong and stupid he is
It is only a what if, though. There is no known mechanism that would actually perform the proposed action, and certainly not without requiring its own amount of energy to operate which would inherently add to the entropy in that system. In fact, no such mechanism is possible. And if it turned out that it were, the presence and functionality of that mechanism would upend a good deal of physics as we know it.
So that’s why it’s still a thought experiment and not a practical one.
We already have devices that can move energy from one side of a system to another (Peltiers, heat pumps, etc.) but they inherently consume energy and in so doing produce waste heat, because that’s how the universe works.
Right, but at the time they weren’t sure of that. It’s like how Freud spawned modern psychology, by people insisting he was wrong and stupid and then proving just how wrong and stupid he is