Short History of Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics

Abstract

Thermodynamics is intended to be a universal description of the world we live in. Thermodynamics began in the attempt to understand the cycles of the steam engine in the mid-nineteenth century in which the cycles were essentially considered quasi-static processes, those consisting of a sequence of equilibrium states. Most real processes, however, are non-equilibrium processes and therefore are time-dependent. They are dynamic, not quasi-static, and generally involve dissipation. Dissipation is common in natural phenomena including friction, permanent deformation of solids, release of heat, etc. and cannot be described by quasi-static or time reversible physics. But even so, the earliest researchers in the subject identified the first and second laws of thermodynamics. In the twentieth century, researchers began to describe non-equilibrium thermodynamic behavior, an effort that required reformulation of the second law, which, even if vague, is an attempt to ensure that, in the thermodynamic description, heat can only flow from hot to cold regions unless the process is forced. This chapter does not review in detail other thermodynamics theories, but rather identifies the issues and problems to be dealt with by the maximum dissipation non-equilibrium thermodynamic construction.