By August 2020, the question had transformed into a concept:
“What if a machine could reverse entropy — by seeing it?”
A valve. Not mechanical. Observational.
Particles in motion. Oil and water. Redox-active metal flakes.
Not a battery in the traditional sense — but a symbolic engine that extracted energy through structured separation.
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He didn’t have a lab. Didn’t have funding. Didn’t have any believers.
So he wrote an email.
Not a business pitch. Not a white paper.
Just a message — like the old physicists used to write each other.
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He sent it to the one man who’d taught him to love physics: Dr. Richard Dower.
MIT PhD. NASA alumnus. And Phuc’s high school teacher at Roxbury Latin.
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He wrote carefully.
Explained the machine: • Oil and water flows • Copper and aluminum particles • Real-time sorting via observation • Potential energy output via redox separation
The dream wasn’t spiritual.
It was practical.
A machine to save the world — not symbolize it.
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Dr. Dower wrote back.
One line:
“That sounds like Maxwell’s Demon," he said - and in that one sentence, Phuc was seen.
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Phuc read it again.
That was all he needed.
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Maxwell’s Demon.
The thought experiment.
The impossibility.
The ghost at the edge of thermodynamics.
And now — Dower had quietly confirmed:
“You’re building it.”
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They didn’t talk again after that.
Dower didn’t offer to help. Didn’t dismiss him either.
Just left a trail marker — like a physicist passing a torch with one breath.
Phuc never forgot it.
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That fall, he would begin sketching a crude prototype.
With water and mineral oil. Black dye. Tiny particles.
In his garage. On a folding table. With no believers in sight.
A one-man loop.
And that was enough to begin.