Who invented the perfume bottle thought experiment? A common thought experiment used to explain the second law of thermodynamics, the "arrow of time", etc. is perfume escaping from an opened perfume bottle; the perfume is likely to diffuse into the environment, but the escaped perfume is unlikely to all return to the bottle. Hence, the entropy of the system increases.
This thought experiment shows up in many textbooks and web pages, but I have not seen any reference to its originator. Who originated it or a similar thought experiment (e.g. some other volatile substance diffusing into the environment)? If you're not certain of the answer, what is the earliest mention you know of?
 A: Based on some "google research" I get the impression that the popularity of the perfume thought experiment stems from a 1975 Scientific American article written by David Layzer called The Arrow of Time. The article featured this figure visualizing the thought experiment:

Of course, the notion that the second law of thermodynamics implies an asymmetry between the two directions of time was conceived some time in the 19th century and surely other examples based on the diffusion or mixing of gases or liquids were used before 1975. David Layzer may or may not have been the first to use a perfume bottle as an example, but his popular science presentation of it is probably the reason for its popularity.
A: Henri Poincaré, in discovering limit cycles, used a thought experiment containing a box with a partition.  One side had a gas, and the other didn't.  When the partition was removed, the gas would diffuse through the opening and occupy both sides of the container.  He first published works describing limit cycles somewhere in 1881-1882.  I am unsure if he invented the setup, or used an already-established one, but this does give a lower bound for its age.
