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The Nature of Irreversibility

Author: H.B. Hollinger

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9400954301

A dominant feature of our ordinary experience of the world is a sense of irreversible change: things lose form, people grow old, energy dissipates. On the other hand, a major conceptual scheme we use to describe the natural world, molecular dynamics, has reversibility at its core. The need to harmonize conceptual schemes and experience leads to several questions, one of which is the focus of this book. How does irreversibility at the macroscopic level emerge from the reversibility that prevails at the molecular level? Attempts to explain the emergence have emphasized probability, and assigned different probabilities to the forward and reversed directions of processes so that one direction is far more probable than the other. The conclu sion is promising, but the reasons for it have been obscure. In many cases the aim has been to find an explana tion in the nature of probability itself. Reactions to that have been divided: some think the aim is justified while others think it is absurd.

Quantum Mechanical Irreversibility and Measurement

Author: Paolo Grigolini

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9789810213176

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The subject of this book emerged from a series of lectures that the author gave at the Department of Physics of the University of North Texas during the 1992 Spring Semester, and reflects the vivacious discussions that he has been having with the students and the co-workers attending this course. The main conclusion of these discussions was that the major tenet of the "conservative" physicists, that classical physics must be recovered from quantum mechanics by adopting the statistical perspective of Gibbs, implying by necessity a Gibbs ensemble of Universes as well as a Gibbs ensemble of observers, is not satisfactory. It is actually as unsatisfactory as the dominant approaches to irreversibility. The book examines the current approaches to irreversibility, in classical and quantum physics, and shows that an objective theory of irreversibility does not exist yet, and that all the current theories of irreversibility share with quantum mechanics elements of subjectivity, making crucial the role played by the observer. In addition to the traditional quantum mechanical paradoxes, concerning the quantum theory of measurement, the book also discusses the new difficulties that the physics of chaos is causing to the widely accepted correspondence principle, and suggests that the Boltzmann dream, the dream that the fracture between dynamics and thermodynamics might be healed, cannot become true within the framework of the current physics, and that the establishment of a new physics is necessary for that ambitious purpose to be achieved.

University Physics

Author: Samuel J. Ling

Publisher:

Published: 2017-12-19

Total Pages: 818

ISBN-13: 9789888407613

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University Physics is designed for the two- or three-semester calculus-based physics course. The text has been developed to meet the scope and sequence of most university physics courses and provides a foundation for a career in mathematics, science, or engineering. The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of physics and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and to the world around them. Due to the comprehensive nature of the material, we are offering the book in three volumes for flexibility and efficiency. Coverage and Scope Our University Physics textbook adheres to the scope and sequence of most two- and three-semester physics courses nationwide. We have worked to make physics interesting and accessible to students while maintaining the mathematical rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from fundamental to more advanced concepts, building upon what students have already learned and emphasizing connections between topics and between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses and future careers. The organization and pedagogical features were developed and vetted with feedback from science educators dedicated to the project. VOLUME II Unit 1: Thermodynamics Chapter 1: Temperature and Heat Chapter 2: The Kinetic Theory of Gases Chapter 3: The First Law of Thermodynamics Chapter 4: The Second Law of Thermodynamics Unit 2: Electricity and Magnetism Chapter 5: Electric Charges and Fields Chapter 6: Gauss's Law Chapter 7: Electric Potential Chapter 8: Capacitance Chapter 9: Current and Resistance Chapter 10: Direct-Current Circuits Chapter 11: Magnetic Forces and Fields Chapter 12: Sources of Magnetic Fields Chapter 13: Electromagnetic Induction Chapter 14: Inductance Chapter 15: Alternating-Current Circuits Chapter 16: Electromagnetic Waves

Irreversibility and Dissipation in Microscopic Systems

Author: Édgar Roldán

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-06-13

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 3319070797

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After an insightful introductory part on recent developments in the thermodynamics of small systems, the author presents his contribution to a long-standing problem, namely the connection between irreversibility and dissipation. He develops a method based on recent results on fluctuation theorems that is able to estimate dissipation using only information acquired in a single, sufficiently long, trajectory of a stationary nonequilibrium process. This part ends with a remarkable application of the method to the analysis of biological data, in this case, the fluctuations of a hair bundle. The third part studies the energetics of systems that undergo symmetry breaking transitions. These theoretical ideas lead to, among other things, an experimental realization of a Szilard engine using manipulated colloids. This work has the potential for important applications ranging from the analysis of biological media to the design of novel artificial nano-machines.

Stochastic Dynamics and Irreversibility

Author: Tânia Tomé

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-26

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 331911770X

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This textbook presents an exposition of stochastic dynamics and irreversibility. It comprises the principles of probability theory and the stochastic dynamics in continuous spaces, described by Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations, and in discrete spaces, described by Markov chains and master equations. Special concern is given to the study of irreversibility, both in systems that evolve to equilibrium and in nonequilibrium stationary states. Attention is also given to the study of models displaying phase transitions and critical phenomena both in thermodynamic equilibrium and out of equilibrium. These models include the linear Glauber model, the Glauber-Ising model, lattice models with absorbing states such as the contact process and those used in population dynamic and spreading of epidemic, probabilistic cellular automata, reaction-diffusion processes, random sequential adsorption and dynamic percolation. A stochastic approach to chemical reaction is also presented.The textbook is intended for students of physics and chemistry and for those interested in stochastic dynamics. It provides, by means of examples and problems, a comprehensive and detailed explanation of the theory and its applications.

Studies in Irreversibility

Author: Benjamin Schreier

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2009-10-02

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1443815276

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The premise of Studies in Irreversibility: Texts and Contexts is that there is a big difference between phenomena, practices, processes, and events that are irreversible and those that are reversible, and moreover that this difference and its manifold implications remain underappreciated so long as the analysis of culture continues to anchor itself in an emphasis on the capacities of human agency. If messianic modes posit a future to justify the present, and so interpret the influence of the past, the papers in this collection are devoted to examining the present of experience from the perspective of its uncompromising and irreducible past, finding in irreversibility a key to an interpretation of futurity. Together, these papers outline a method of examining experience as something more—or at least other—than the desire to know it, and in so doing they shed light on the powerful role of normativity in the narratives we construct in and about culture. Through novel analyses from the disciplines of literature, art criticism, history, philosophy, ethnic studies, and ethics, the contributors to this book address key questions about the nature of irreversibility: What differentiates the experience of the irreversible from the experience of the reversible? How is irreversibility recognized? What happens when we acknowledge something to be irreversible? How has society contended with irreversibility, and what sorts of tools exist today to interpret its significance? Wary of impetuously fixing the meaning of a still-elusive concept, this volume collects papers that employ a wide array of methodologies, mindful that no one critical approach may yet have proved itself. Irreversibility is not simply a quality of the texts examined in this volume, nor is it strictly speaking a lens through which otherwise coherent or stable texts are examined; rather, it emerges as a model that brings together texts and the thinking of them. By together outlining a method of examining culture that moves beyond reliance on tropes such as functionalism, teleology, and chance, tropes that have dominated twentieth century cultural analysis, these papers help to inaugurate a new paradigm in the study of culture.

Non-Equilibrium Entropy and Irreversibility

Author: C. Lindblad

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2001-11-30

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9781402003202

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The problem of deriving irreversible thermodynamics from the re versible microscopic dynamics has been on the agenda of theoreti cal physics for a century and has produced more papers than can be digested by any single scientist. Why add to this too long list with yet another work? The goal is definitely not to give a gen eral review of previous work in this field. My ambition is rather to present an approach differing in some key aspects from the stan dard treatments, and to develop it as far as possible using rather simple mathematical tools (mainly inequalities of various kinds). However, in the course of this work I have used a large number of results and ideas from the existing literature, and the reference list contains contributions from many different lines of research. As a consequence the reader may find the arguments a bit difficult to follow without some previous exposure to this set of problems.

Political Theory and the Environment

Author: Mathew Humphrey

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9780714651811

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This collection offers a sympathetic but critical perspective on contemporary ecological political theory, and gives proposals for a reorientation of some of its key aspects.

Kinetic Theory

Author: S. G. Brush

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2016-10-27

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1483155935

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Kinetic Theory, Volume 2: Irreversible Processes compiles the fundamental papers on the kinetic theory of gases. This book comprises the two papers by Maxwell and Boltzmann in which the basic equations for transport processes in gases are formulated, as well as the first derivation of Boltzmann's “H-theorem and problem of irreversibility. Other topics include the dynamical theory of gases; kinetic theory of the dissipation of energy; three-body problem and the equations of dynamics; theorem of dynamics and the mechanical theory of heat; and mechanical explanation of irreversible processes. This volume is beneficial to physics students in the advanced undergraduate or postgraduate level.

Laminar Flow and Convective Transport Processes

Author: Howard Brenner

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2013-10-22

Total Pages: 761

ISBN-13: 1483292223

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Laminar Flow and Convective Transport Processes: Scaling Principles and Asymptotic Analysis presents analytic methods for the solution of fluid mechanics and convective transport processes, all in the laminar flow regime. This book brings together the results of almost 30 years of research on the use of nondimensionalization, scaling principles, and asymptotic analysis into a comprehensive form suitable for presentation in a core graduate-level course on fluid mechanics and the convective transport of heat. A considerable amount of material on viscous-dominated flows is covered. A unique feature of this book is its emphasis on scaling principles and the use of asymptotic methods, both as a means of solution and as a basis for qualitative understanding of the correlations that exist between independent and dependent dimensionless parameters in transport processes. Laminar Flow and Convective Transport Processes is suitable for use as a textbook for graduate courses in fluid mechanics and transport phenomena and also as a reference for researchers in the field.