From: MenTaLguY <mental@...>
Date: 2007-07-20T04:30:59+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Religion (was: god 0.1.0 released)

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On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 01:36 +0900, Ari Brown wrote:
> Daemon was a reference to Maxwell's Demon, a physics demon that kept =20
> things working in the background. The MIT students then made called =20
> their background processes 'daemons' in honor of  Maxwell's Demon.

"Maxwell's Demon" is a famous thought experiment in thermodynamics:
imagine a container of gas separated into two compartments, with a small
closable aperture between them controlled by an extremely quick and
perceptive creature (the "demon").  As the gas molecules move around
randomly, the demon opens the aperture at opportune moments to permit
"warmer" molecules to pass in one direction between the compartments,
and "colder" molecules in the opposite.  The question Maxwell sought to
raise is whether such an arrangement would/could violate the second law
of thermodynamics.

I don't know offhand whether MIT students did name their background
processes after the demon in Maxwell's thought experiment, but it seems
unlikely.

-mental

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