A story and a recommendation about the principle of maximum entropy production

Abstract

The principle of maximum entropy production (MEP) is the subject of considerable academic study, but has yet to become remarkable for its practical applications. A tale is told of an instance in which a spin-off from consideration of an MEP-constrained climate model at least led to re-consideration of the very practical issue of water-vapour feedback in climate change. Further, and on a more-or-less unrelated matter, a recommendation is made for further research on whether there might exist a general "rule" whereby, for certain classes of complex non-linear systems, a state of maximum entropy production is equivalent to a state of minimum entropy. © 2009 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.