Understanding non-equilibrium thermodynamics: Foundations, applications, frontiers

Abstract

Discover the many facets of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The first part of this book describes the current thermodynamic formalism recognized as the classical theory of non-equilibrium processes. The classical description, however, cannot be complete, as it rests on the hypothesis of local equilibrium. This has fostered many theories going beyond local equilibrium that cannot be put aside. The second part of the book focuses on these different approaches. To make the book clear and easy to follow, the authors continue to use the general structure and methods presented in the first part. Indeed, besides their differences, all these formalisms are not closed boxes, but rather they present some overlapping and parallelism that are highlighted in the book. Throughout the presentation, the emphasis is on practical problem-solving applications. To help build your understanding, some problems have been analyzed using several formalisms to underscore their differences and their similarities. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. All rights are reserved.