4 Maximum Entropy Production and Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics
4 Maximum Entropy Production and Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics
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4 最大熵产生和非平衡统计力学
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发表时间：
2004
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通讯作者：
R. Dewar
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作者：
R. Dewar
在过去的30年里，对行星气候、晶体生长形态、细菌代谢和光合作用等各种现象的研究积累了大量支持非平衡系统最大熵产生（MEP）原理的经验证据。然而，在很多人看来，环保法只不过是一种奇珍异宝，这主要是因为它缺乏理论依据。本章提供了一个非数学的概述，最近统计解释的MEP源于波尔兹曼，吉布斯，香农和杰恩斯的工作。这里的目的是强调MEP背后的关键物理思想。对于与周围环境交换能量和物质并施加各种约束（例如，外力，守恒定律）的非平衡系统，表明，在与所施加的约束兼容的所有可能的稳态中，大自然选择了MEP状态，因为它是最可能的状态，也就是说，它是宏观状态，可以通过比任何其他途径更多的微观途径实现。熵的产生是从适用于所有系统的局部能量和质量平衡的普遍约束中出现的极值量，这可能解释了MEP在物理学和生物学中的明显流行。同样的物理思想也解释了自组织临界性和一个关于违反热力学第二定律（涨落定理）的概率的结果，最近得到了实验验证。根据这些结果，包括生命系统在内的高熵产生的耗散结构可以被视为非常可能的现象。简要概述了将这些结果应用于其他类型的非均衡系统，如经济体的前景。
Over the last 30 years empirical evidence in favour of the Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) principle for non-equilibrium systems has been accumulating from studies of phenomena as diverse as planetary climates, crystal growth morphology, bacterial metabolism and photosynthesis. And yet MEP is still regarded by many as nothing other than a curiosity, largely because a theoretical justification for it has been lacking. This chapter offers a non-mathematical overview of a recent statistical explanation of MEP stemming from the work of Boltzmann, Gibbs, Shannon and Jaynes. The aim here is to highlight the key physical ideas underlying MEP. For non-equilibrium systems that exchange energy and matter with their surroundings and on which various constraints are imposed (e.g., external forcings, conservation laws), it is shown that, among all the possible steady states compatible with the imposed constraints, Nature selects the MEP state because it is the most probable one, i.e., it is the macroscopic state that could be realised by more microscopic pathways than any other. That entropy production is the extremal quantity emerges here from the universal constraints of local energy and mass balance that apply to all systems, which may explain the apparent prevalence of MEP throughout physics and biology. The same physical ideas also explain self-organized criticality and a result concerning the probability of violations of the second law of thermodynamics (the Fluctuation Theorem), recently verified experimentally. In the light of these results, dissipative structures of high entropy production, which include living systems, can be viewed as highly probable phenomena. The prospects for applying these results to other types of non-equilibrium system, such as economies, are briefly outlined.