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This book is an informal, readable introduction to the basic ideas of thermal physics. It is aimed at making the reader feel comfortable with the extremum principles of entropy and free energies. There is a repeating theme: Molecules (spins) do X to maximize their entropy, and molecules (spins) do XX to minimize their free energy. This finally leads to the idea of the Landau-Ginzburg free energy functional. The author illustrates how powerful the idea is by using two examples from phase transitions.

Contents: Introduction to Thermal Physics; All You Need to Know to Read the Rest; Isolated Thermal Systems; Systems in Contact with a Thermal Reservoir; Open Systems, Flexible Systems, and Two More Energy-like Functions; Energy versus Free Energy; Phases and Phase Transitions; Second-Order Phase Transitions; Landau-Ginzburg Free Energy Functional and Applications; Monte Carlo and Finite-Size Scaling. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A very good overview
This book deserves to be quoted for all the people who want to have a short and very physical introduction to the subject. The book remains at an introductory level but the author covers a lot of subjects without loosing the physical intuition or interpretation at every stage of the text. It is true that the book won't help the student to master the calculations of thermodynamics and statistical physics, but since the introduction the author is very honest on this . A list of the books which may be read to give a further insight on the different chapters is given at the end.
This book has been written to give to the reader a physical understanding of the subject and of the logic behind the mathematical methods generally used in the context of thermal physics.
Surely someone already trained in (statistical) thermodynamics will even more enjoy the reading of this book.
The book is short, easy to read and not expensive (a quality which is not negligible for a science book). For my opinion it is a little jewel. ... Read more

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This monograph is an outgrowth of a set of lecture notes on the maximum entropy method delivered in 1988 at the 1 st Venezuelan School of Mathematics. This yearly event aims at acquainting graduate students and university teachers with the trends, techniques and open problems of current interest. In this book the author hopes to convey the underlying philosophy of the method. ... Read more

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A unified theory of the measures of entropy is presented in this research monograph. After covering basic materials on the Shannon and Renyi entropies, the monograph focuses on non- additive measures of entropy. Novel techniques for the systematic discovery of all possible entropy measures are also described. Characterizations of the non-additive entropies are given by the method of functional equations while properties of all entropies are studied in detail. ... Read more

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From the reviews: "... Each chapter of the book is followed by a notes section and by a problems section. There are over 100 problems, many of which have hints. The book may be recommended as a text, it provides a completly self-contained reading ..." --S. Pogosian in Zentralblatt für Mathematik

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The aim of this book is to present a statistical theory of wave scattering by complex systems -systems which have a chaotic classical dynamics, as in the case of microwave cavities and quantum dots, or possess quenched randomness, as in the case of disordered conductors--with emphasis on mesoscopic fluctuations.

The universal character of the statistical behavior of these phenomena is incorporated in a natural way by approaching the problem from a Maximum-Entropy viewpoint -Shannon's information entropy is maximized, subject to the symmetries and constraints that are physically relevant-- within the powerful, non-perturbative Theory of Random Matrices. This book also collects in one place the material and notions -derived from the published work of the authors in collaboration with several co-workers, as well as from the work of others-- which are scattered through research journals and textbooks on the subject.

To make the book self-contained, we present in Chapters 2 and 3 the quantum theory of scattering, set in the context of quasi-one-dimensional, multichannel systems, thus related directly to scattering problems in mesoscopic physics. Chapter 4 discusses the linear-response theory of quantum electronic transport, adapted to the context of mesoscopic systems. These chapters, together with Chapter 5 on the Maximum-Entropy Approach and Chapter 8 on weak localization, have been written in a pedagogical style, and can be used as part of a graduate course. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the problem of electronic transport through classically chaotic cavities and quasi-one-dimensional disordered systems. There are many exercises, most of them worked out in detail, distributed throughout the book. This should help graduate students, their teachers and the research scholars interested generally in the subject of quantum transport through disordered and chaotic systems in their preparation for it, and beyond. ... Read more

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Jerry Cornelius, the English assassin, is featured in this collection of four stories which look at the world from 1900 to 2000. The books are "The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century", "The Entropy Tango", "Gold Diggers of 1977" and "The Alchemist's Questions". ... Read more

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This new book presents the diverse and rapidly expanding field of Entropy Generation Minimization (EGM), the method of thermodynamic optimization of real devices. The underlying principles of the EGM method - also referred to as "thermodynamic optimization," "thermodynamic design," and "finite time thermodynamics" - are thoroughly discussed, and the method's applications to real devices are clearly illustrated. The EGM field has experienced tremendous growth during the 1980s and 1990s. This book places EGM's growth in perspective by reviewing both sides of the field - engineering and physics. Special emphasis is given to chronology and to the relationship between the more recent work and the pioneering work that outlined the method and the field. Entropy Generation Minimization combines the fundamental principles of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid mechanics. EGM applies these principles to the modeling and optimization of real systems and processes that are characterized by finite size and finite time constraints, and are limited by heat and mass transfer and fluid flow irreversibilities.Entropy Generation Minimization provides a straightforward presentation of the principles of the EGM method, and features examples that elucidate concepts and identify recent EGM advances in engineering and physics. Modern advances include the optimization of storage by melting and solidification; heat exchanger design; power from hot-dry-rock deposits; the on & off operation of defrosting refrigerators and power plants with fouled heat exchangers; the production of ice and other solids; the maximization of power output in simple power plant models with heat transfer irreversibilities; the minimization of refrigerator power input in simple models; and the optimal collection and use of solar energy. ... Read more

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The distribution of the eigenvalues of differential operators has long fascinated mathematicians. Recent advances have shed new light on classical problems in this area, and this book presents a fresh approach, largely based on the results of the authors. The emphasis here is on a topic of central importance in analysis, namely the relationship between i) function spaces on Euclidean n-space and on domains; ii) entropy numbers in quasi-Banach spaces; and iii) the distribution of the eigenvalues of degenerate elliptic (pseudo) differential operators. The treatment is largely self-contained and accessible to nonspecialists. ... Read more

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This book is an updated version of the information theory classic, first published in 1990. About one-third of the book is devoted to Shannon source and channel coding theorems; the remainder addresses sources, channels, and codes and on information and distortion measures and their properties. New in this edition- Expanded treatment of stationary or sliding-block codes and theirrelations to traditional block codes.- Expanded discussion of results from ergodic theory relevant to information theory.- Expanded treatment of B-processes -- processes formed by stationary coding memoryless sources.- New material on trading off information and distortion, including the Marton inequality.- New material on the properties of optimal and asymptotically optimal source codes. - New material on the relationships of source coding and rate-constrained simulation or modeling of random processes.Significant material not covered in other information theory texts includes stationary/sliding-block codes, a geometric view of information theory provided by process distance measures, and general Shannon coding theorems for asymptotic mean stationary sources, which may be neither ergodic nor stationary, and d-bar continuous channels. ... Read more

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This text/reference presents practical maximum-entropy models used in both the hard and the soft sciences. The basic theory of the maximum-entropy principle is explained, followed by detailed applications in numerous areas of science, business and economics, including thermodynamics, mechanics, statistics, design of experiments, time-series analysis, queuing and decision theory. Contains more than 600 specially constructed exercises. ... Read more

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This volume records the proceedings of the FourteenthInternational Workshop on Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods, heldin Cambridge, England from August 1--5, 1994. Throughout applied science, Bayesian inference is giving high qualityresults augmented with reliabilities in the form of probability valuesand probabilistic error bars. Maximum Entropy, with its emphasis onoptimally selected results, is an important part of this. Across wideareas of spectroscopy and imagery, it is now realistic to generateclear results with quantified reliability. This power is underpinnedwith a foundation of solid mathematics. The annual Maximum Entropy Workshops have become the principal focusof developments in the field, and which capture the imaginativeresearch that defines the state of the art in the subject. The breadthof application is seen in the thirty-three papers reproduced here,which are classified into subsections on Basics, Applications, Physicsand Neural Networks. Audience: This volume will be of interest to graduate studentsand researchers whose work involves probability theory, neuralnetworks, spectroscopic methods, statistical thermodynamics and imageprocessing. ... Read more

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At the intersection of philosophy, physics,psychology and structural design, thereemerges a non-mystical understanding ofcreativity and divinity, and a clear view ofhow men and women are able to rise toward it.This book demonstrates that humans aretranscendent by nature and explainsprecisely which structures and errors havelimited transcendence to occasionaloutbursts and a lucky few.CONTENTSFirst Words1 Nature & Man2 Mankind3 The Inner Man4 Evidence From The Ambient5 From Entropy To DivinityFinal Words ... Read more

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This volume contains the proceedings of the FifteenthInternational Workshop on Maximum Entropy and BayesianMethods, held in Sante Fe, New Mexico, USA, from July 31 to August4, 1995. Maximum entropy and Bayesian methods are widely applied to statisticaldata analysis and scientific inference in the natural and socialsciences, engineering and medicine. Practical applications include,among others, parametric model fitting and model selection, ill-posedinverse problems, image reconstruction, signal processing, decisionmaking, and spectrum estimation. Fundamental applications include thecommon foundations for statistical inference, statistical physics andinformation theory. Specific sessions during the workshop focused ontime series analysis, machine learning, deformable geometric models,and data analysis of Monte Carlo simulations, as well as reviewing therelation between maximum entropy and information theory. Audience: This book should be of interest to scientists,engineers, medical professionals, and others engaged in such topics asdata analysis, statistical inference, image processing, and signalprocessing. ... Read more

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Over 130 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell introduced his hypothetical "demon" as a challenge to the scope of the second law of thermodynamics. Fascination with the demon persisted throughout the development of statistical and quantum physics, information theory, and computer science, and links have been established between Maxwell's demon and each of these disciplines. The demon's seductive quality makes it appealing to physical scientists, engineers, computer scientists, biologists, psychologists, and historians and philosophers of science.

Since the publication of Maxwell's Demon: Entropy, Information, Computing in 1990, Maxwell's demon has been the subject of renewed and increased interest by numerous researchers in the fields mentioned above. Updated and expanded, Maxwell's Demon 2: Entropy, Classical and Quantum Information, Computing retains many of the seminal papers that appeared in the first edition, including the original thoughts of James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson; a historical review by Martin Klein; and key articles by Leo Szilard, Leon Brillouin, Rolf Landauer, and Charles Bennett that led to new branches of research on the demon. This second edition contains newer articles by Landauer, Bennett, and others, related to Landauer's principle; connections with quantum mechanics; algorithmic information; and the thermodynamics and limits of computation. The book also includes two separate bibliographies: an alphabetical listing by author and a chronological bibliography that is annotated by the editors and contains selected quotes from the books and articles listed. The bibliography has more than doubled in size since publication of the first edition and now contains over 570 entries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Clear, complete, and well-organized
Maxwell's Demon 2 is one of the best books I've found in the field - the authors address key issues in a clear and engaging manner.This is an excellent and well-organized reference book and includes any number of original papers which are difficult to find through other sources. Highly recommended. ... Read more

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This monograph, by now a standard reference in the field, provides a complete overview of quantum entropy theory, from the early days of quantum mechanics up to the most recent developments. It employs mathematical formalism based on operator theory and functional analysis with a goal of creating a comprehensive account of the different entropy concepts, their interrelations and use. Among the ideas discussed are entropy of a quantum state, relative entropy, mutual entropy, entropy of a coarse graining and dynamical entropy. Numerous fundamental properties of quantum information measurement are developed, including the von Neumann entropy of a statistical operator and its limiting normalized version, the entropy rate. Use of quantum-entropy quantities is made in perturbation theory, central limit theorems, thermodynamics of spin systems, entropic uncertainty relations, and optical communication. This new softcover corrected reprint contains summaries of recent developments added to the ends of the chapters.

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A great variety of complex phenomena in many scientific fields exhibit power-law behavior, reflecting a hierarchical or fractal structure. Many of these phenomena seem to be susceptible to description using approaches drawn from thermodynamics or statistical mechanics, particularly approaches involving the maximization of entropy and of Boltzmann-Gibbs statistical mechanics and standard laws in a natural way.The book addresses the interdisciplinary applications of these ideas, and also on various phenomena that could possibly be quantitatively describable in terms of these ideas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Much ado ...
.. about a student-t like distribution. Too much ado. There is no generalization of entropy (see the comment by Nauenberg and Balian in 2005 Europhysics News, e.g.) and no 'generalized thermostatistics. In fact, there is nothing but a postulated distribution that (as do student-ts typically) has a Gaussian limit. So what?

The claim of 'nonlinear Fokker-Planck" and "nonlinear Markov processes" was quite easy to explode: There is no such thing as a 'nonlinear Markov process'. There is no such thing as a 'nonlinear Fokker-Planck equation' for a conditional probability. A conditional probability with initial state memory is nonMarkovian. A conditional probability with initial state memory is not guaranteed to obey a Chapman-Kolmogorov equation and usually doesn't. A Chapman-Kolmogorov equation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a Markov process. A Fokker-Planck equation with memory of an initial state in its drift and/or diffusion coefficients does not generate a Markov process. A nonlinear diffusion equation does not define any stochastic process at all, in fact a diffusion equation for a 1-point density defines no stochastic process at all. A 1-point density cannot be used to identify/define a stochastic process, both scaling Markov processes and strongly nonMarkov processes like fractional Brownian motion have exactly the same 1-point density, with widely differing conditional densities. For detailed explanations see cond-mat/0701589 and references therein.

It would be of interest to psychologists and sociologists to study and analyze how such 'movements', based on claims hanging in thin air, gain a multitude of followers and hangers-on, as this movement has. The literature over the last 10 years is riddled with wrong and empty papers on such stuff. ... Read more