Abstract
With all due respect to Robert Boyle, there is a “spring” to the air that the venerable Irish physicist never dreamed of some three centuries ago when he introduced his fellow natural philosophers to the effects of pressure.1 Air is not merely compressible; it can course and caper through appropriate devices in such ways as to please the ear and titillate, if not confound, the intellect. I learned that first hand from playing.
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Notes
R. Boyle, New Experiments, Physico-mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air and Its Effects, (Oxford, 1660).
A discussion of these experiments may be found in R. Harré, Great Scientific Experiments, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983, pp. 74–83.
This picture is reproduced in Niels Bohr: A Centenary Volume, edited by A. P. French and P. J. Kennedy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1985, p. 177.
H. Bondi, The Rigid Body Dynamics of Unidirectional Spin, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A405 (1986) 265.
A qualitative description of the origin of the celt’s behavior is given by J. Webb, Torque of the Devil, New Scientist (26 July 1997) 35.
Maxwell did not remain confused over the radiometer effect for long, but addressed its mechanisms in a seminal paper, On Stresses in Rarified Gases Arising from Inequalities of Temperature, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A170 (1879) 231;
reprinted in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, Volume 2, edited by W. D. Niven, Dover, New York, 1952, pp. 681–712.
I write about my investigation of the “dragon tube” in Waves and Grains: Reflections on Light and Learning, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1998, Chapter 14.
A comprehensive guide to the literature on Maxwell demons is given by H. S. Leff and A. F. Rex, Resource Letter MD-1: Maxwell’s Demon, American Journal of Physics 58 (1990) 201.
A. C. Parlett, Maxwell’s Demon and Monsieur Ranque, Astounding Science Fiction (January 1950) 105–110.
A. Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, in Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist, Volume 1, edited by P. A. Schilp, Open Court, La Salle, IL, 1969, p. 32.
N. Bohr, H. A. Kramers, and J. S. Slater, The Quantum Theory of Radiation, Philosophical Magazine 47 (1924) 785.
J. C. Maxwell, Theory of Heat, 8th ed., Longman, Green, and Co., London, 1885, pp. 328–329.
L. Szilard, Über die Entropieverminderung in einem thermodynamischen System bei Eingriffen intelligenter Wesen, Zeitschrift für Physik 53 (1929) 840.
The paper is reprinted together with an English translation in The Collected Works of Leo Szilard: Scientific Papers, edited by B. T. Feld and G. W. Szilard, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1972, p. 103.
L. Brillouin, Maxwell’s Demon Cannot Operate: Information and Entropy. I, Journal of Applied Physics 22 (1951) 334.
P. W. Bridgman, The Nature of Thermodynamics, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1941, p. 161.
G. Ranque, Expériences sur la Détente Giratoire avec Productions Simultanées d’un Echappement d’air Chaud et d’un Echappement d’air Froid, Journal de Physique et Radium 4(7) (1933) 1125.
R. Hilsch, The Use of the Expansion of Gases in a Centrifugal Field as Cooling Process, Reviews of Scientific Instruments 18 (1947) 108;
translation of an article in Zeitschrift der Naturwissenschaft 1 (1946) 208.
R. L. Kenyon, Maxwellian Demon at Work, Industrial Engineering and Chemistry 38(5) (1946) 5;
R. L. Kenyon, The Demon Again, Industrial Engineering and Chemistry 38(12) (1946) 5–14.
M. Kurosaka, Acoustic Streaming in Swirling Flow and the Ranque-Hilsch (Vortex Tube) Effect, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 124 (1982) 139;
M. Kurosaka, J. Q. Chu, and J. R. Goodman, Ranque-Hilsch Effect Revisited: Temperature Separation Traced to Orderly Spinning Waves or “Vortex Whistle,” Conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1982.
W. H. Cropper, The Quantum Physicists, Oxford University Press, New York, 1970, p. 57.
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Silverman, M.P. (2002). The Wirbelrohr’s Roar. In: A Universe of Atoms, An Atom in the Universe. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-22761-0_2
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