TIME REVERSI, COMP SIMULAT & CHAOS

Hoover William Graham

ISBN 10: 9810240732 / ISBN 13: 9789810240738

Published by World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd Nov 1999, 1999

About this Item

Neuware - A small army of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and engineers has joined forces to attack a classic problem, the 'reversibility paradox', with modern tools. This book describes their work from the perspective of computer simulation, emphasizing the author's approach to the problem -- understanding the compatibility, and even inevitability, of the irreversible second law of thermodynamics with an underlying time-reversible mechanics. Computer simulation has made it possible to probe reversibility from a variety of directions and 'chaos theory' or 'nonlinear dynamics' has supplied a useful vocabulary and set of concepts, which allow a fuller explanation of irreversibility than that available to Boltzmann or to Green and Kubo and Onsager. Clear illustration of concepts is emphasized throughout, and reinforced with a glossary of technical terms from the specialized fields which have been combined here to focus on a common theme.

Seller Inventory # 9789810240738

Bibliographic Details

• Title: TIME REVERSI, COMP SIMULAT & CHAOS
• Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd Nov 1999
• Publication Date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 9810240732
• ISBN 13: 9789810240738
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 223W x 162H x 22D millimeters 223 millimeters width by 162 millimeters height by 22 millimeters depth
• Weight: 515 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A small army of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and engineers has joined forces to attack a classic problem, the "reversibility paradox", with modern tools. This book describes their work from the perspective of computer simulation, emphasizing the author's approach to the problem of understanding the compatibility, and even inevitability, of the irreversible second law of thermodynamics with an underlying time-reversible mechanics. Computer simulation has made it possible to probe reversibility from a variety of directions and "chaos theory" or "nonlinear dynamics" has supplied a useful vocabulary and set of concepts, which allow a fuller explanation of irreversibility than that available to Boltzmann or to Green and Kubo and Onsager. Clear illustration of concepts is emphasized throughout, and reinforced with a glossary of technical terms from the specialized fields which have been combined here to focus on a common theme. The book begins with a discussion contrasting the idealized reversibility of basic physics and the pragmatic irreversibility of real life. Computer models, and simulation, are next discussed and illustrated. Simulations provide the means to assimilate concepts through worked-out examples. State-of-the-art analyses, from the point of view of dynamical systems, are applied to many-body examples from nonequilibrium molecular dynamics and to chaotic irreversible flows from finite-difference, finite-element, and particle-based continuum simulations. Two necessary concepts from dynamical-systems theory - fractals and Lyapunov instability - are fundamental to the approach.Undergraduate-level physics, calculus, and ordinary differential equations are sufficient background for a full appreciation of this book, which is intended for advanced undergraduates, graduates, and research workers.

Review

"... lively, informal, and somewhat personal review of a branch of statistical physics ..." -- Mathematical Reviews, 2002