William Graham Hoover – författare

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. The generous assortment of examples worked out in the text will stimulate readers to explore the rich and fruitful field of study which links fundamental reversible laws of physics to the irreversibility surrounding us all.

A recent development is the discovery that simple systems of equations can have chaotic solutions in which small changes in initial conditions have a large effect on the outcome, rendering the corresponding experiments effectively irreproducible and unpredictable. An earlier book in this sequence, Elegant Chaos: Algebraically Simple Chaotic Flows provided several hundred examples of such systems, nearly all of which are purely mathematical without any obvious connection with actual physical processes and with very limited discussion and analysis.In this book, we focus on a much smaller subset of such models, chosen because they simulate some common or important physical phenomenon, usually involving the motion of a limited number of point-like particles, and we discuss these models in much greater detail. As with the earlier book, the chosen models are the mathematically simplest formulations that exhibit the phenomena of interest, and thus they are what we consider 'elegant.'Elegant models, stripped of unnecessary detail while maximizing clarity, beauty, and simplicity, occupy common ground bordering both real-world modeling and aesthetic mathematical analyses. A computational search led one of us (JCS) to the same set of differential equations previously used by the other (WGH) to connect the classical dynamics of Newton and Hamilton to macroscopic thermodynamics. This joint book displays and explores dozens of such relatively simple models meeting the criteria of elegance, taste, and beauty in structure, style, and consequence.This book should be of interest to students and researchers who enjoy simulating and studying complex particle motions with unusual dynamical behaviors. The book assumes only an elementary knowledge of calculus. The systems are initial-value iterated maps and ordinary differential equations but they must be solved numerically. Thus for readers a formal differential equations course is not at all necessary, of little value and limited use.

This book aims to provide an example-based education in numerical methods for atomistic and continuum simulations of systems at and away from equilibrium. The focus is on nonequilibrium systems, stressing the use of tools from dynamical systems theory for their analysis. Lyapunov instability and fractal dimensionality are introduced and algorithms for their analysis are detailed. The book is intended to be self-contained and accessible to students who are comfortable with calculus and differential equations.The wide range of topics covered will provide students, researchers and academics with effective tools for formulating and solving interesting problems, both atomistic and continuum. The detailed description of the use of thermostats to control nonequilibrium systems will help readers in writing their own programs rather than being saddled with packaged software.

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 authors' 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 a set of concepts, which allow a fuller explanation of irreversibility than that available to Boltzmann or to Green, 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 against 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. The generous assortment of examples worked out in the text will stimulate readers to explore the rich and fruitful field of study which links fundamental reversible laws of physics to the irreversibility surrounding us all.This expanded edition stresses and illustrates computer algorithms with many new worked-out examples, and includes considerable new material on shockwaves, Lyapunov instability and fluctuations.

This book aims to provide a lively working knowledge of the thermodynamic control of microscopic simulations, while summarizing the historical development of the subject, along with some personal reminiscences. Many computational examples are described so that they are well-suited to learning by doing. The contents enhance the current understanding of the reversibility paradox and are accessible to advanced undergraduates and researchers in physics, computation, and irreversible thermodynamics.