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Schematic figure of Maxwell's demon thought experiment. Maxwell's demon is a thought experiment that appears to disprove the second law of thermodynamics. It was proposed by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1867. [1] In his first letter, Maxwell referred to the entity as a "finite being" or a "being who can play a game of skill with the ...
The biological equivalent of Maxwell's "finite being" is a molecular demon. According to Landauer's principle, the demon must record the state of each molecule, and the eventual erasure of that information would return entropy to the system. [6] In aphorism 341 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche puts forth his eternal recurrence concept. In it, he ...
In the history of science, Laplace's demon was a notable published articulation of causal determinism on a scientific basis by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814. [1] According to determinism, if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed ...
The 1957 film Night of the Demon (directed by Jacques Tourneur) is an adaption of this story. [2] In this version, the central character is called Dr John Holden (played by Dana Andrews ). Holden is an American psychologist who plans to expose occultist Julian Karswell ( Niall MacGinnis ) as a charlatan , only to discover that Karswell's powers ...
In particular, "curse" may refer to such a wish or pronouncement made effective by a supernatural or spiritual power, such as a god or gods, a spirit, or a natural force, or else as a kind of spell by magic (usually black magic) or witchcraft; in the latter sense, a curse can also be called a hex or a jinx.
Daemonologie—in full Dæmonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Books: By the High and Mightie Prince, James &c.—was first published in 1597 [1] by King James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) as a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic.
After receiving approval from the U.S. Senate in the early morning hours of Dec. 21, the Social Security Fairness Act is set to be presented to the president and signed into law.
De praestigiis daemonum, translated as On the Tricks of Demons, [1] is a book by medical doctor Johann Weyer, also known as Wier, first published in Basel in 1563. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The book argues that witchcraft does not exist and that those who claim to practice it are suffering from delusions, which should be treated as mental illnesses, rather ...