Highest-entropy, lowest-energy and lowest-volume principles

Abstract

A statement of the lowest-volume principle, which holds both for simple systems and for collections of simple systems, is proved. Moreover, new proofs of the highest-entropy and of the lowest-energy principles, for simple systems and for collections of simple systems, are presented. The extremum principles proved in this paper hold for every set of states in which entropy is defined. © 2000 Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier SAS.