Related papers: Entropy, Probability and Dynamics
We have presented first an axiomatic derivation of Boltzmann entropy on the basis of two axioms consistent with two basic properties of thermodynamic entropy. We have then studied the relationship between Boltzmann entropy and information…
I will argue, pace a great many of my contemporaries, that there's something right about Boltzmann's attempt to ground the second law of thermodynamics in a suitably amended deterministic time-reversal invariant classical dynamics, and that…
Some general considerations on the notion of entropy in physics are presented. An attempt is made to clarify the question of the differentiation between physical entropy (the Clausius-Boltzmann one) and quantities called entropies…
Ludwig Boltzmann had a hunch that irreversibility exhibited by a macroscopic system arises from the reversible dynamics of its microscopic constituents. He derived a nonlinear integro-differential equation - now called the Boltzmann…
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Boltzmann explained how irreversible macroscopic laws, in particular the second law of thermodynamics, originate in the time-reversible laws of microscopic physics. Boltzmann's analysis,…
In 1910 Einstein published a crucial aspect of his understanding of Boltzmann entropy. He essentially argued that the likelihood function of any system composed by two probabilistically independent subsystems {\it ought} to be factorizable…
Boltzmann introduced in the 1870's a logarithmic measure for the connection between the thermodynamical entropy and the probabilities of the microscopic configurations of the system. His entropic functional for classical systems was…
Boltzmann's Principle S = k ln W was repeatedly criticized by Einstein since it lacked a proper dynamical foundation in view of the thermal motion of the particles, out of which a physical system consists. This suggests, in particular, that…
Regardless of studies and debates over a century, the statistical origin of the second law of thermodynamics still remains illusive. One essential obstacle is the lack of a proper theoretical formalism for non-equilibrium entropy. Here I…
A new axiomatic characterization with a minimum of conditions for entropy as a function on the set of states in quantum mechanics is presented. Traditionally unspoken assumptions are unveiled and replaced by proven consequences of the…
The science of thermodynamics was put together in the Nineteenth Century to describe large systems in equilibrium. One part of thermodynamics defines entropy for equilibrium systems and demands an ever-increasing entropy for non-equilibrium…
In order to undestand how the complex concept of entropy emerged,we propose a trip towards the past reviewing the works of Clausius, Boltzmann, Gibbs and Planck. In particular, since the Gibbs's work is not very well known, we present a…
Are your perceptions, memories and observational data, a statistical fluctuation out of the thermal equilibrium of the universe, having no correlation with the actual past state of the universe? Arguments are given in the literature for and…
This thesis investigates the connection between quantum theory, thermodynamics and information theory. Theories with structure similar to that of quantum theory are considered, mathematically described by the framework of "Generalized…
We test Boltzmann's H-theorem for several models of particle random walk. We study the influence of interaction between the particle and reservoir/detectors on entropy and find entropy increasing in time for some models and behaving…
The paper deals with the generalization of both Boltzmann entropy and distribution in the light of most-probable interpretation of statistical equilibrium. The statistical analysis of the generalized entropy and distribution leads to some…
For a dynamical system far from equilibrium, one has to deal with empirical probabilities defined through time-averages, and the main problem is then how to formulate an appropriate statistical thermodynamics. The common answer is that the…
A dynamical estimate is given for the Boltzmann entropy of the Universe, under the simplifying assumptions provided by Newtonian cosmology. We first model the cosmological fluid as the probability fluid of a quantum-mechanical system. Next,…
Here we deconstruct, and then in a reasoned way reconstruct, the concept of "entropy of a system," paying particular attention to where the randomness may be coming from. We start with the core concept of entropy as a COUNT associated with…
Many complex systems are characterized by non-Boltzmann distribution functions of their statistical variables. If one wants to -- justified or not -- hold on to the maximum entropy principle for complex statistical systems (non-Boltzmann)…