A New Thermodynamics Featuring the Arrow in Time
Abstract
It is a truth universally acknowledged that all isolated macroscopic systems must be in want of ever greater disorder, with due apologies to Jane Austen for plagiarizing the opening line in her novel Pride and Prejudice. This common, everyday process, often referred to as the Arrow of Time, has not been able to find a comfortable home in the body of modern statistical physics. There is a hint of such a disordering arrow in the second law of traditional thermostatics but, properly stated, that law relates only to the static equilibrium state of confined, isolated macroscopic matter. We will attempt to enhance today's thermo statics with a true thermo dynamics in which the disordering arrow in time is shown to be responsible for all the order -- creation we find in the universe -- including the existential order needed to sustain life.
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