Relaxation processes and the maximum entropy production principle

Abstract

Spontaneous transitions of an isolated system from one macroscopic state to another (relaxation processes) are accompanied by a change of entropy. Following Jaynes' MaxEnt formalism, it is shown that practically all the possible microscopic developments of a system, within a fixed time interval, are accompanied by the maximum possible entropy change. In other words relaxation processes are accompanied by maximum entropy production. © 2010 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.