Related papers: Boltzmann Bridges
A classical and quantum mechanical generalized second law of thermodynamics in cosmology implies constraints on the effective equation of state of the universe in the form of energy conditions, obeyed by many known cosmological solutions,…
For an isolated assembly that comprises a system and its surrounding reservoirs, the total entropy ($S_{a}$) always monotonically increases as time elapses. This phenomenon is known as the second law of thermodynamics ($S_{a}\geq0$). Here…
Motivated by the notion that the mathematics of gravity can be reproduced from a statistical requirement of maximal entropy, we study the consequence of introducing an entropic source term in the Einstein-Hilbert action. For a spatially…
Recently, there has been a considerable progress on the issue of the thermodynamic second law, which is known as the law of entropy increase or irreversibility. In particular, a novel symmetry known as the Gallavotti-Cohen symmetry is found…
A definition of the thermodynamic entropy based on the time-dependent probability distribution of the macroscopic variables is developed. When a constraint in a composite system is released, the probability distribution for the new…
A major part of the many thermally driven processes in our natural environment as well as in engineering solutions of Carnot-type machinery is based on the second law of thermodynamics (or principle of entropy increase). An interesting link…
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases (or does not change) by time in an isolated system. As microscopic physical laws are reversible, the origin of irreversibility is not straightforward. Although the outcome of a…
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…
Boltzmann's principleS=k*ln W is generalized to non-equilibrium Hamiltonian systems with possibly fractal distributions in phase space by the box-counting volume. The probabilities P(M) of macroscopic observables M are given by the ratio…
This article is a short version of a longer article to appear in Physics Reports (cond-mat/9708200). The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of…
In a previous work (M. Campisi. Stud. Hist. Phil. M. P. 36 (2005) 275-290) we have addressed the mechanical foundations of equilibrium thermodynamics on the basis of the Generalized Helmholtz Theorem. It was found that the volume entropy…
The second law of thermodynamics is a statement about the statistics of the entropy production, $\langle \Sigma \rangle \geq 0$. For small systems, it is known that the entropy production is a random variable and negative values ($\Sigma <…
Boltzmann's entropy is slightly modified to make it suitable for discussing phase transitions in finite systems. As an example it is shown that the pendulum undergoes a second order phase transition when passing from a vibrational to a…
If an asymmetry in time does not arise from the fundamental dynamical laws of physics, it may be found in special boundary conditions. The argument normally goes that since thermodynamic entropy in the past is lower than in the future…
Second law of thermodynamics imposes that in any thermodynamic process the entropy production must be nonnegative. In continuum physics such a requirement is fulfilled by postulating the constitutive equations which represent the material…
The 2nd law of thermodynamics yields an irreversible increase in entropy until thermal equilibrium is achieved. This irreversible increase is often assumed to require large and complex systems to emerge from the reversible microscopic laws…
The second law of thermodynamics states that for a thermally isolated system entropy never decreases. Most physical processes we observe in nature involve variations of macroscopic quantities over spatial and temporal scales much larger…
The authors of Ref. [1] claim to have experimental verification of violations of the second law of thermodynamics based on the assertions: (i) "for large systems and over long times the entropy production rate is necessarily positive"; (ii)…
We treat a quantum mechanical system with certain general properties which are expected to be common in macroscopic quantum systems. Starting from a PURE initial state (which may not describe an equilibrium) in which energy is mildly…
The generalized second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases when all event horizons are attributed with an entropy proportional to their area. We test the generalized second law by investigating the change in entropy…