The nature of irreversibility : a study of its dynamics and physical origins
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The nature of irreversibility : a study of its dynamics and physical origins
(The University of Western Ontario series in philosophy of science, v. 28)
D. Reidel Pub. Co. , Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, c1985
Available at 8 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
-
Hokkaido University, Library, Graduate School of Science, Faculty of Science and School of Science図書
dc19:530.1/h7242021272371
Note
Bibliography: p. 319-329
Includes indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.- 2. The Paradoxes.- 2.1 Early Studies of Heat and Attempts to Formulate Equations of Heat Flow.- 2.2 Thompson's 1852 Statement on Irreversibility.- 2.3 Dissipative Processes and Irreversible Processes Not Yet Distinguished.- 2.4 Statistical Notions Enter Kinetic Theory.- 2.5 Boltzmann Tries to Reduce the Second Law to Mechanics.- 2.6 The "H" Theorem and Loschmidt's Reversibility Paradox.- 2.7 The Reversibility Paradox Rediscovered.- 2.8 Boltzmann's Philosophy of Science.- 2.9 The Boltzmann-Planck Debate.- 2.10 Ehrenfests and the Problem of Irreversibility.- 3. The Applications.- 3.1 Transport Rates Determined by Mean Free Paths.- 3.2 Transport Rates Determined by the Boltzmann Equation.- 4. Return to the Paradoxes.- 4.1 The Loss of Information.- 4.2 Microscopic Reversibility.- 4.3 The Role of Recent Equilibrium.- 4.4 Molecular Chaos and the BBGKY Theory.- 4.5 Later Developments.- 5. Various Kinds of Irreversibility.- 5.1 Inertial Irreversibility.- 5.2 Temporal Irreversibility.- 5.3 Exclusion Irreversibility.- 5.4 Mixing the Criteria: Thermodynamic Irreversibility.- 5.5 Mixing the Criteria: Paradoxical Irreversibility.- 5.6 Refinements: de Facto and Nomological Irreversibility.- 5.7 Statistical Irreversibility: Necessarily de Facto.- 6. Proposed Origins of Irreversibility.- 6.1 Probabilistic Origins.- 6.2 Mechanical Origins.- 7. The Origin of Exclusion Irreversibility.- 7.1 The Simplest Newtonian Models.- 7.2 The Role of Time Scales.- 7.3 Exclusion and Dissipation.- 7.4 The Principle of Recent Equilibrium.- 7.5 A Reflection.- 8. Irreversibility in Fluid Dynamics.- 8.1 The Fluid Concept.- 8.2 Fluid Processes.- 8.3 Fluid Equations.- 8.4 Fundamental Equations of Change.- 8.5 Stochastic Equations of Change.- 8.6 Simple Equations of Flux.- 8.7 Complex Equations of Flux.- 8.8 Equations of Equilibrium.- 9. Irreversibility in Statistical Mechanics.- 9.1 The Method of Statistical Mechanics.- 9.2 Generalization to Systems of Interacting Particles.- 9.3 Generalization to a Continuum of States.- 9.4 The Liouville Theorem.- 9.5 Joining Statistics and Mechanics: The One-Particle Approximation.- 9.6 Complex Equations of Flux in the One-Particle Approximation.- 9.7 The Two-Particle Approximation.- 9.8 Higher Approximations.- 10. Irreversibility in Quantum statistical Mechanics.- 10.1 The Schroedinger Equation.- 10.2 The One-Particle Approximation.- 10.3 The Two-Particle Approximation.- 10.4 The Chemical Approximation.- 11. On Alternative Approaches.- Appendix - Some Reflections on Time and Temporality.- Notes.- References.- Name Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"