Te Vrugt Michael
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, D-48149 Münster, Germany; Center for Soft Nanoscience, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, D-48149 Münster, Germany; Philosophisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, D-48143 Münster, Germany.
Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2021 Jun;87:136-146. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.04.006. Epub 2021 Apr 24.
Thermodynamics has a clear arrow of time, characterized by the irreversible approach to equilibrium. This stands in contrast to the laws of microscopic theories, which are invariant under time-reversal. Foundational discussions of this "problem of irreversibility" often focus on historical considerations, and do therefore not take results of modern physical research on this topic into account. In this article, I will close this gap by studying the implications of dynamical density functional theory (DDFT), a central method of modern nonequilibrium statistical mechanics not previously considered in philosophy of physics, for this debate. For this purpose, the philosophical discussion of irreversibility is structured into five problems, concerned with the source of irreversibility in thermodynamics, the definition of equilibrium and entropy, the justification of coarse-graining, the approach to equilibrium and the arrow of time. For each of these problems, it is shown that DDFT provides novel insights that are of importance for both physicists and philosophers of physics.
热力学有一个明确的时间箭头，其特征是朝着平衡态的不可逆过程。这与微观理论的定律形成对比，微观理论的定律在时间反演下是不变的。关于这个“不可逆性问题”的基础讨论通常集中在历史考量上，因此没有考虑到现代物理学关于这个主题的研究成果。在本文中，我将通过研究动力学密度泛函理论（DDFT）的影响来填补这一空白，DDFT是现代非平衡统计力学的核心方法，此前在物理学哲学中未被考虑过，用于这场辩论。为此，不可逆性的哲学讨论被构建为五个问题，涉及热力学中不可逆性的来源、平衡和熵的定义、粗粒化的合理性、趋近平衡的过程以及时间箭头。对于这些问题中的每一个，都表明DDFT提供了对物理学家和物理学哲学家都很重要的新颖见解。
