Irreversible motion

We tend to identify 5p(F) as the entropy production in a nonequilibrium system, whereas B(F) is a term that contributes just at the beginning and end of the nonequilibrium process. Note that the entropy production 5p(F) is antisymmetric under time reversal, 5p(F ) = -5p(F), expressing the fact that the entropy production is a quantity related to irreversible motion. According to Eq. (21) paths that produce a given amount of entropy are much more probable than those... 

Substantiation of the capabilities of equilibrium descriptions and reduction of the models of irreversible motion to the models of rest... 

IRREVERSIBLE MOTION ON MACROSCOPIC AND MOLECULAR TIMESCALES AND CHEMICAL DYNAMICS IN LIQUIDS... 

The plan of this chapter is as follows. In Section II and the Appendix we review some basic topics in statistical mechanics that underlie questions concerning the regimes of validity of slow and fast variable descriptions of irreversible motion. 

At first glance a review of Onsager s theory might appear to have little or no relevance to the topics of this chapter. This, however, is not the case. This is because Onsager s theory, as extended to include memory by Mori [5] is the most general slow variable theory of irreversible motion. Thus, our examination of Onsager s work exposes limitations inherent in all slow variable models. Especially, it shows that the limitations of the Kramers-type models for reactions merely reflect the macroscopic scope of the general theory of irreversible processes [1,3-5]. 

Diffusional descriptions of irreversible motion, in addition to requiring the slow variable assumption, only validly describe the dynamics of strongly overdamped (weak force, high friction) systems, and then only over coarse-grained time intervals much longer than the system s acceleration decay times i. ... 

---