The Nature of Inversibility

1. Introduction.- 2. The Paradoxes.- 2.1 Early Studies of Heat and Attempts to Formulate Equations of Heat Flow.- 2.2 Thompson's 1852 Statement on Irreversibility.- 2.3 Dissipative Processes and Irreversible Processes Not Yet Distinguished.- 2.4 Statistical Notions Enter Kinetic Theory.- 2.5 Boltzmann Tries to Reduce the Second Law to Mechanics.- 2.6 The "H" Theorem and Loschmidt's Reversibility Paradox.- 2.7 The Reversibility Paradox Rediscovered.- 2.8 Boltzmann's Philosophy of Science.- 2.9 The Boltzmann-Planck Debate.- 2.10 Ehrenfests and the Problem of Irreversibility.- 3. The Applications.- 3.1 Transport Rates Determined by Mean Free Paths.- 3.2 Transport Rates Determined by the Boltzmann Equation.- 4. Return to the Paradoxes.- 4.1 The Loss of Information.- 4.2 Microscopic Reversibility.- 4.3 The Role of Recent Equilibrium.- 4.4 Molecular Chaos and the BBGKY Theory.- 4.5 Later Developments.- 5. Various Kinds of Irreversibility.- 5.1 Inertial Irreversibility.- 5.2 Temporal Irreversibility.- 5.3 Exclusion Irreversibility.- 5.4 Mixing the Criteria: Thermodynamic Irreversibility.- 5.5 Mixing the Criteria: Paradoxical Irreversibility.- 5.6 Refinements: de Facto and Nomological Irreversibility.- 5.7 Statistical Irreversibility: Necessarily de Facto.- 6. Proposed Origins of Irreversibility.- 6.1 Probabilistic Origins.- 6.2 Mechanical Origins.- 7. The Origin of Exclusion Irreversibility.- 7.1 The Simplest Newtonian Models.- 7.2 The Role of Time Scales.- 7.3 Exclusion and Dissipation.- 7.4 The Principle of Recent Equilibrium.- 7.5 A Reflection.- 8. Irreversibility in Fluid Dynamics.- 8.1 The Fluid Concept.- 8.2 Fluid Processes.- 8.3 Fluid Equations.- 8.4 Fundamental Equations of Change.- 8.5 Stochastic Equations of Change.- 8.6 Simple Equations of Flux.- 8.7 Complex Equations of Flux.- 8.8 Equations of Equilibrium.- 9. Irreversibility in Statistical Mechanics.- 9.1 The Method of Statistical Mechanics.- 9.2 Generalization to Systems of Interacting Particles.- 9.3 Generalization to a Continuum of States.- 9.4 The Liouville Theorem.- 9.5 Joining Statistics and Mechanics: The One-Particle Approximation.- 9.6 Complex Equations of Flux in the One-Particle Approximation.- 9.7 The Two-Particle Approximation.- 9.8 Higher Approximations.- 10. Irreversibility in Quantum statistical Mechanics.- 10.1 The Schrodinger Equation.- 10.2 The One-Particle Approximation.- 10.3 The Two-Particle Approximation.- 10.4 The Chemical Approximation.- 11. On Alternative Approaches.- Appendix - Some Reflections on Time and Temporality.- Notes.- References.- Name Index.