Ebook: The Nature of Irreversibility: A Study of Its Dynamics and Physical Origins
- Tags: Philosophy of Science, Statistical Physics Dynamical Systems and Complexity, Physical Chemistry
- Series: The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science 28
- Year: 1985
- Publisher: Springer Netherlands
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- pdf
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.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xi
Introduction....Pages 1-4
The Paradoxes....Pages 5-29
The Applications....Pages 30-40
Return to the Paradoxes....Pages 41-56
Various Kinds of Irreversibility....Pages 57-86
Proposed Origins of Irreversibility....Pages 87-97
The Origin of Exclusion Irreversibility....Pages 98-112
Irreversibility in Fluid Dynamics....Pages 113-158
Irreversibility in Statistical Mechanics....Pages 159-256
Irreversibility in Quantum Statistical Mechanics....Pages 257-288
On Alternative Approaches....Pages 289-303
Back Matter....Pages 304-340
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xi
Introduction....Pages 1-4
The Paradoxes....Pages 5-29
The Applications....Pages 30-40
Return to the Paradoxes....Pages 41-56
Various Kinds of Irreversibility....Pages 57-86
Proposed Origins of Irreversibility....Pages 87-97
The Origin of Exclusion Irreversibility....Pages 98-112
Irreversibility in Fluid Dynamics....Pages 113-158
Irreversibility in Statistical Mechanics....Pages 159-256
Irreversibility in Quantum Statistical Mechanics....Pages 257-288
On Alternative Approaches....Pages 289-303
Back Matter....Pages 304-340
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