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For more than 140 years Maxwell's demon has intrigued, enlightened, mystified, frustrated, and challenged physicists in unique and interesting ways. Maxwell's original conception was brilliant and insightful, but over the years numerous different versions of Maxwell's demon have been presented. Most versions have been answered with reasonable physical arguments, with each of these answers (apparently) keeping the second law of thermodynamics intact. Though the laws of physics did not change in this process of questioning and answering, we have learned a lot along the way about statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. This paper will review a selected history and discuss some of the interesting historical characters who have participated.

This Resource Letter provides a comprehensive guide to the voluminous literature that has developed around Maxwell’s demon, and offers a perspective on issues for which the hypothetical character Maxwell introduced over 120 years ago has inspired continuing research and debate. The code (E) indicates elementary level or general interest material useful to persons just learning the field; (I) indicates intermediate level or somewhat specialized material; and (A) indicates advanced or highly specialized material. No accompanying AAPT reprint book will be available, because an extensive reprint collection (Ref. 29) edited by the authors will be published separately.

It is widely believed that measurement is accompanied by irreversible entropy increase. This conventional wisdom is based in part on Szilard’s 1929 study of entropy decrease in a thermodynamic system by intelligent intervention (i.e., a Maxwell’s demon) and Brillouin’s association of entropy with information. Bennett subsequently argued that information acquisition is not necessarily irreversible, but information erasure must be dissipative (Landauer’s principle). Inspired by the ensuing debate, we revisit the membrane model introduced by Szilard and find that it can illustrate and clarify (1) reversible measurement, (2) information storage, (3) decoupling of the memory from the system being measured, and (4) entropy increase associated with memory erasure and resetting.

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