Saved by the Paradox

In this game the player controls a door which separates two chambers with a gas. As individual gas particles approach the door the player needs to quickly open and close the door to allow only fast-moving particles to pass through in one direction, and only slow-moving ones in the other. Doing so the player creates a temperature imbalance between the two chambers (and a decrease in the entropy of the gas!)

Such imbalance is then used as a source of energy to propel a car. The car needs to reach the finish line on a road full of obstacles —coffins and barrels which reduce its speed— and prizes —points— before the Monster catches up to us!

The game is based on Maxwell’s demon paradox, stated by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1867. The paradox, posed as a thought experiment, proposes a possible violation of the second law of thermodynamics by a diminute being —the demon— which could measure the speed of particles in a gas and decide to open and close a door to separate the fast from the slow ones. Due to the kinetic nature of temperature, as a result of its actions the demon would cause one chamber to warm up and the other to cool down. This process would decrease the total entropy of the gases, in apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics. This paradox opened the door to a statistical interpretation of the second law and stimulated the relationship between thermodynamics and information theory.

Saved by the Paradox is an application developed by the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona, within the framework of the UB mobility project