Structure, Stability, and Fluctuations: Thermodynamics of Structure by Glansdorff and Prigogine

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Book Overview:
To completely describe the state of a dynamical system, one must determine the coordinates and momentum of the system's molecules, or their wave functions. However, applying this method to systems in physical chemistry or biology is hardly practical. The importance of thermodynamics and fluid dynamics lies in the ability to describe macroscopic systems in "simplified terms."

In recent years, the development of irreversible thermodynamics has made it possible to apply macroscopic methods to systems not in equilibrium, but this was essentially limited to the vicinity of equilibrium. The central issue of this book is to extend the methods of thermodynamics to all phenomena, including those with nonlinearity and instability, as well as equilibrium states.

"The problem of structure appearing in open systems is a fundamental problem in physics and fluid dynamics, and is also an important problem that researchers dealing with biological systems should be aware of. However, it is only very recently that research on this problem, which involves various fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and social sciences, has been recognized as a unique field, and it has been difficult to access it through organized lectures or single books. This book should be considered the first introductory book on this general problem, and it attempts to obtain a unified perspective mainly from the standpoint of non-equilibrium thermodynamics." (From the "Translator's Postscript")