Related papers: Probability as a physical motive
The application of principles of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics to economic systems is considered in a broad historical perspective, extending from prehistoric times to the present day. The hypothesis of maximum entropy production…
It is a common belief that in any environment where life is possible, life will be generated. Here it is suggested that the cause for a spontaneous generation of complex systems is probability driven processes. Based on equilibrium…
Statistical mechanics descriptions of the second law of thermodynamics generally imply point-like particles driven by a dissipative overall mechanism for their simultaneous time-evolution. As the number of involved particles grows larger,…
Thermodynamics is based on the notions of energy and entropy. While energy is the elementary quantity governing physical dynamics, entropy is the fundamental concept in information theory. In this work, starting from first principles, we…
We give meaning to the first and second laws of thermodynamics in case of mesoscopic out-of-equilibrium systems which are driven by diffusion processes. The notion of the entropy production is analyzed. The role of the Helmholtz extremum…
The maximum entropy principle (MEP) apparently allows us to derive, or justify, fundamental results of equilibrium statistical mechanics. Because of this, a school of thought considers the MEP as a powerful and elegant way to make…
Entropy is the distinguishing and most important concept of our efforts to understand and regularize our observations of a very large class of natural phenomena, and yet, it is one of the most contentious concepts of physics. In this…
In statistical thermodynamics the 2nd law is properly spelled out in terms of conditioned probabilities. As such it makes the statement, that `entropy increases with time' without preferring a time direction. In this paper I try to explain…
Extremal principles are fundamental in our interpretation of phenomena in nature. One of the best known examples is the second law of thermodynamics, governing most physical and chemical systems and stating the continuous increase of…
The Principle of Insufficient Reason (PIR) assigns equal probabilities to each alternative of a random experiment whenever there is no reason to prefer one over the other. The Maximum Entropy Principle (MaxEnt) generalizes PIR to the case…
When thermodynamics is understood as the science (or art) of constructing effective models of natural phenomena by choosing a minimal level of description capable of capturing the essential features of the physical reality of interest, the…
The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of entropy in irreversible adiabatic processes that take one equilibrium state to another. The entropy…
With the help of a general expression of the entropies in extensive and nonextensive systems, some important relations between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics are revealed through the views of thermodynamics and statistic physics.…
I argue that if a special science satisfies certain key assumptions that are familiar from physicalist accounts of the special sciences and from physics, then its causal regularities have an associated notion of entropy, and that this…
The foundations of Statistical Mechanics can be recovered almost in their entirety from the Principle of Maximum Entropy. In this work we show that its non-equilibrium generalization, the Principle of Maximum Caliber (Jaynes, 1980), when…
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…
After presenting possible motives for fighting against the second law of thermodynamics, several attempts to beat this law are analyzed. The second law wins, but an interesting interpretation of it emerges. This interpretation uses the…
All physical process are subject to some laws which determine with math accurately its time-space evolution. These laws are described, in the last analysis for the principle of causality. The physical space can be homogeneous or…
Behavior in the context of game theory is described as a natural process that follows the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The rate of entropy increase as the payoff function is derived from statistical physics of open systems. The thermodynamic…
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…