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Books > Science & Mathematics > Physics > Thermodynamics & statistical physics
This book has grown out of eight years of close collaboration among its authors. From the very beginning we decided that its content should come out as the result of a truly common effort. That is, we did not "distribute" parts of the text planned to each one of us. On the contrary, we made a point that each single paragraph be the product of a common reflection. Genuine team-work is not as usual in philosophy as it is in other academic disciplines. We think, however, that this is more due to the idiosyncrasy of philosophers than to the nature of their subject. Close collaboration with positive results is as rewarding as anything can be, but it may also prove to be quite difficult to implement. In our case, part of the difficulties came from purely geographic separation. This caused unsuspected delays in coordinating the work. But more than this, as time passed, the accumulation of particular results and ideas outran our ability to fit them into an organic unity. Different styles of exposition, different ways of formalization, different levels of complexity were simultaneously present in a voluminous manuscript that had become completely unmanageable. In particular, a portion of the text had been conceived in the language of category theory and employed ideas of a rather abstract nature, while another part was expounded in the more conventional set-theoretic style, stressing intui tivity and concreteness.
An important new area of current research in combustion science is reviewed in the contributions to this volume. The complicated phenomena of combustion, such as chemical reactions, heat and mass transfer, and gaseous flows, have so far been studied predominantly by experiment and by phenomenological approaches. But asymptotic analysis and other recent developments are rapidly changing this situation. The contributions in this volume are devoted to mathematical modeling in three areas: high Mach number combustion, complex chemistry and physics, and flame modeling in small scale turbulent flow combustion.
In this book the author presents the dynamical systems in infinite dimension, especially those generated by dissipative partial differential equations. This book attempts a systematic study of infinite dimensional dynamical systems generated by dissipative evolution partial differential equations arising in mechanics and physics and in other areas of sciences and technology. This second edition has been updated and extended.
This monograph provides the first up-to-date and self-contained presentation of a recently discovered mathematical structure the Schrodinger-Virasoro algebra. Just as Poincare invariance or conformal (Virasoro) invariance play a key role in understanding, respectively, elementary particles and two-dimensional equilibrium statistical physics, this algebra of non-relativistic conformal symmetries may be expected to apply itself naturally to the study of some models of non-equilibrium statistical physics, or more specifically in the context of recent developments related to the non-relativistic AdS/CFT correspondence. The study of the structure of this infinite-dimensional Lie algebra touches upon topics as various as statistical physics, vertex algebras, Poisson geometry, integrable systems and supergeometry as well as representation theory, the cohomology of infinite-dimensional Lie algebras, and the spectral theory of Schrodinger operators."
Particles with fractional statistics interpolating between bosons and fermions have attracted considerable interest from mathematical physicists. In recent years it has emerged that these so-called anyons have rather unexpected applications, such as the fractional Hall effect, anyonic excitations in films of liquid helium, and high-temrperature superconductivity. Furthermore, they are discussed also in the context of conformal field theories. This book is a systematic and pedagogical introduction that considers the subject of anyons from many different points of view. In particular, the author presents the relation of anyons to braid groups and Chern-Simons field theory and devotes three chapters to physical applications. The book, while being of interest to researchers, primarily addresses advanced students of mathematics and physics.
This monograph gives a detailed introductory exposition of research results for various models, mostly two-dimensional, of directed walks, interfaces, wetting, surface adsorption (of polymers), stacks, compact clusters (lattice animals), etc. The unifying feature of these models is that in most cases they can be solved analytically. The methods used include transfer matrices, generating functions, recurrence relations, and difference equations, and in some cases involve utilization of less familiar mathematical techniques such as continued fractions and q-series. The authors emphasize an overall view of what can be learned generally of the statistical mechanics of anisotropic systems, including phenomena near surfaces, by studying the solvable models. Thus, the concept of scaling and, where known, finite-size scaling properties are elucidated. Scaling and statistical mechanics of anisoptropic systems in general are active research topics. The volume provides a comprehensive survey of exact model results in this field.
Complexity, Cognition and the City aims at a deeper understanding of urbanism, while invoking, on an equal footing, the contributions both the hard and soft sciences have made, and are still making, when grappling with the many issues and facets of regional planning and dynamics. In this work, the author goes beyond merely seeing the city as a self-organized, emerging pattern of some collective interaction between many stylized urban "agents" - he makes the crucial step of attributing cognition to his agents and thus raises, for the first time, the question on how to deal with a complex system composed of many interacting complex agents in clearly defined settings. Accordingly, the author eventually addresses issues of practical relevance for urban planners and decision makers. The book unfolds its message in a largely nontechnical manner, so as to provide a broad interdisciplinary readership with insights, ideas, and other stimuli to encourage further research - with the twofold aim of further pushing back the boundaries of complexity science and emphasizing the all-important interrelation of hard and soft sciences in recognizing the cognitive sciences as another necessary ingredient for meaningful urban studies.
In the past ten years, there has been much progress in understanding the global dynamics of systems with several degrees-of-freedom. An important tool in these studies has been the theory of normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds and foliations of normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds. In recent years these techniques have been used for the development of global perturbation methods, the study of resonance phenomena in coupled oscillators, geometric singular perturbation theory, and the study of bursting phenomena in biological oscillators. "Invariant manifold theorems" have become standard tools for applied mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and virtually anyone working on nonlinear problems from a geometric viewpoint. In this book, the author gives a self-contained development of these ideas as well as proofs of the main theorems along the lines of the seminal works of Fenichel. In general, the Fenichel theory is very valuable for many applications, but it is not easy for people to get into from existing literature. This book provides an excellent avenue to that. Wiggins also describes a variety of settings where these techniques can be used in applications.
Advances in the dynamics of stellar systems have been made recently by applying mathematical methods of ergodic theory and chaotic dynamics, by numerous computer simulations, and by observations with the most powerful telescopes. This has led to a considerable change of our view on stellar systems. These systems appear much more chaotic than was previously thought and subject to various instabilities leading to new paths of evolution than previously thought. The implications are fundamental for our views on the evolution of the galaxies and the universe. Such questions are addressed in this book, especially in the 8 review papers by leading experts on various aspects of the N-body problem, explaining at the graduate/postgraduate level the concepts, methods, techniques and results.
This volume contains the lectures and invited seminars pre sented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on NON-EQUILIBRIUM COOPERATIVE PHENOMENA IN PHYSICS AND RELATED FIELDS that was held at EL ESCORIAL (MADRID), SPAIN, on August 1-11, 1983. Most nonlinear problems in dissipative systems, i . e . , most mathematical models in SYNERGETICS are highly trans disciplinary in practice and the list of lecturers and participants at the ASI reflects this di versi ty both in background and interest. The presentation of the material fell into two main categories: tutopia~ Zectures on some basic ideas and methods, both experimental and theoretical, intended to lay a common base for all participants, and a series of more specific lectures and seminars, serving the purpose of exemplying selected but typical applications in their current state of development. Topics were chosen for their basic interest as well as for their potential for applications (laser, hydrodynamics, liquid crystals, EHD, combustion, thermoelasticity, etc. ). We had more seminars and some of the oral presentations were supported or complemented with 16 mm films and on occasion with experimental demonstrations including a special seminar, a social one on broken symmetries in Art and Music. There is here no record of these non-standard acti vi ties. We had, indeed, quite a heavy load for which I was fully responsible. However, the reader and, above all, the participants at the ASI ought to be aware of the fact that in Spain, with.
I welcome the opportunity to have my book translated, because of the great emphasis on two-phase flow and heat transfer in the English-speaking world, as related to research, university education, and industrial practice. The 1988 Springer-Verlag edition of "Warmeiibergang beim Kondensieren und beim Sieden" has been enlarged to include additional material on falling film evaporation (Chapter 12) and pressure drop in two-phase flow (Chapter 13). Minor errors in the original text have also been corrected. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Professor Green, Asso ciate Professor of German at Rensselaer, for his excellent translation and co operation. My thanks go also to Professor Bergles for his close attention to technical and linguistic details. He carefully read the typescript and made many comments and suggestions that helped to improve the manuscript. I hope that the English edition will meet with' a favorable reception and contribute to better understanding and to progress in the field of heat transfer in condensation and boiling. February 1992 K. Stephan Preface to the German-Language Edition This book is a continuation of the series "Heat and Mass Transfer" edited by U. Grigull, in which three volumes have already been published. Its aim is to acquaint students and practicing engineers with heat transfer during condensa tion and boiling, and is intended primarily for students and engineers in mechanical, chemical, electrical, and industrial processing engineering."
The book aims to give an overview of the previous Sitges Conferences, which have been held during the last 25 years, with special emphasis on topics related to non-equilibrium phenomena. It includes review articles and articles dealing with new trends in the subject, written by scientists who have played an important role in the development of this area. The book is intended as a commemorative edition of the Sitges Conferences. Graduate students of physics and researchers will find this a stimulating account of the development of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics in the last years, covering a wide scope of topics: kinetic theory, hydrodynamics, fluctuation phenomena and stochastic processes, relaxation phenomena, kinetics of phase transitions, growth kinetics, and so on.
Starting from basic principles, the book covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from Heisenberg, Schroedinger, second quantization, density matrix and path integral formulations of quantum mechanics, to applications that are (or will be) corner stones of present and future technologies. The emphasis is on spin waves, quantum information, recent tests of quantum physics and decoherence. The book provides a large amount of information without unbalancing the flow of the main ideas by laborious detail.
P. Levy's work on random walks with infinite moments, developed more than half a century ago, has now been fully appreciated as a foundation of probabilistic aspects of fractals and chaos as well as scale-invariant processes. This is the first book for physicists devoted to Levy processes. It includes thorough review articles on applications in fluid and gas dynamics, in dynamical systems including anomalous diffusion and in statistical mechanics. Various articles approach mathematical problems and finally the volume addresses problems in theoretical biology. The book is introduced by a personal recollection of P. Levy written by B. Mandelbrot."
Written in a pedagogical way, the articles in this book address graduate students as well as researchers and are well suited for seminar work. Subjects at the forefront of nuclear research, bordering other areas of many-particle physics, such as electron scattering at different energy scales, new physics with radioactive beams, multifragmentation, relativistic nuclear physics, high spin nuclear problems, chaos, the role of the continuum in nuclear physics or recent calculations with the shell model are presented. It is felt that the topics treated in this book address the main future lines of development of nuclear physics.
Increasing possibilities of computer-aided data processing have caused a new revival of optical techniques in many areas of mechanical and chemical engi neering. Optical methods have a long tradition in heat and mass transfer and in fluid dynamics. Global experimental information is not sufficient for de veloping constitution equations to describe complicated phenomena in fluid dynamics or in transfer processes by a computer program. Furthermore, a detailed insight with high local and temporal resolution into the thermo and fluiddynamic situations is necessary. Sets of equations for computer program in thermo dynamics and fluid dynamics usually consist of two types of formulations: a first one derived from the conservation laws for mass, energy and momentum, and a second one mathematically modelling transport processes like laminar or turbulent diffusion. For reliably predicting the heat transfer, for example, the velocity and temperature field in the boundary layer must be known, or a physically realistic and widely valid correlation describing the turbulence must be avail able. For a better understanding of combustion processes it is necessary to know the local concentration and temperature just ahead of the flame and in the ignition zone."
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With progress in technology, the problem of protecting human-beings, ma chines and technological processes from >Ources of vibration and impact has become of utmost importance. Traditional "classical" methods of pro tection, based upon utilising elastic passive and dissipative elements, turn out to be inefficient in many situations and can not completely satisfy the complex and often contradictory claims imposed on modern vibration protection systems which must provide high performance at minimum di mensions. For these reasons, active vibration protection systems, which are actually systems of automatic control with independent power sources, are widely used nowadays. Appearing and developing active systems require that traditional ap proaches to the analysis and synthesis of vibration protection systems must be revised. Firstly, there exists the necessity to re-state the problem of vi bration protection from mechanical actions as an equivalent problem in closed-loop control systems design, which is to be solved by the methods of control theory. Furthermore, it turns out that certain inherent proper ties of active systems must be taken into account for a proper design. In the majority of cases, the dynamic models of the objects to be protected and the bases to which these objects are to be attached must be revised. They are no longer considered as rigid bodies but elastic bodies with weak dissipation."
Photothermal science continues to be an area of rapid development and active investigation, as is demonstrated by this volume. The various contributions present fundamental research in materials science, physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine, as well as important applications of photothermal techniques in nondestructive evaluation, aeronomy and pollution control, and other areas. The topics treated include measurements of spectral properties of gases, the theory of thermally generated elastic waves, a method of monitoring local surface displacements, materials characterization and nondestructive evaluation of materials, studies of the dynamics of primary photophysical processes, fast energy exchange at surfaces and at interfaces (e.g. in medicine and photobiology), thermal EXAFS and XANES applied to metals and semiconductors, and imaging of magnetic materials using microwave sources.
The book guides the reader from the foundations of statisti- cal thermodynamics including the theory of intermolecular forces to modern computer-aided applications in chemical en- gineering and physical chemistry. The approach is new. The foundations of quantum and statistical mechanics are presen- ted in a simple way and their applications to the prediction of fluid phase behavior of real systems are demonstrated. A particular effort is made to introduce the reader to expli- cit formulations of intermolecular interaction models and to show how these models influence the properties of fluid sy- stems. The established methods of statistical mechanics - computer simulation, perturbation theory, and numerical in- tegration - are discussed in a style appropriate for newcom- ers and are extensively applied. Numerous worked examples illustrate how practical calculations should be carried out.
In agent-based modeling the focus is very much on agent-based simulation, as simulation is a very important tool for agent-based modeling. We also use agent-based simulation in this book with a stress on the mathematical foundation of agent-based modeling. We introduce two original mathematical frameworks, a theory of SLD (Social Learning Dynamics) and an axiomatic theory of economic exchange (Exchange Algebra) among agents. Exchange algebra gives bottom-up reconstruction of SNA (System of National Accountings). SLD provides the concept of indirect control of socio-economic systems to manage structural change and its stability. We also compare agent-based simulation with gaming simulation and investigate the epistemological foundation of agent-based modeling.
Computer simulation has become a basic tool in many branches of physics such as statistical physics, particle physics, or materials science. The application of efficient algorithms is at least as important as good hardware in large-scale computation. This volume contains didactic lectures on such techniques based on physical insight. The emphasis is on Monte Carlo methods (introduction, cluster algorithms, reweighting and multihistogram techniques, umbrella sampling), efficient data analysis and optimization methods, but aspects of supercomputing, the solution of stochastic differential equations, and molecular dynamics are also discussed. The book addresses graduate students and researchers in theoretical and computational physics.
The thermodynamics of the atmosphere is the subject of several chapters in most textbooks on dynamic meteorology, but there is no work in English to give the subject a specific and more extensive treatment. In writing the present textbook, we have tried to fill this rather remarkable gap in the literature related to atmospheric sciences. Our aim has been to provide students of meteorology with a book that can playa role similar to the textbooks on chemical thermodynamics for the chemists. This implies a previous knowledge of general thermodynamics, such as students acquire in general physics courses; therefore, although the basic principles are reviewed (in the first four chapters), they are only briefly discussed, and emphasis is laid on those topics that will be useful in later chapters, through their application to atmospheric problems. No attempt has been made to introduce the thermodynamics of irreversible processes; on the other hand, consideration of heterogeneous and open homogeneous systems permits a rigorous formulation of the thermodynamic functions of clouds (exclusive of any consideration of microphysical effets) and a better understanding of the approx imations usually implicit in practical applications."
Dissipative Quantum Chaos and Decoherence provides an overview of the state of the art of research in this exciting field. The main emphasis is on the development of a semiclassical formalism that allows one to incorporate the effect of dissipation and decoherence in a precise, yet tractable way into the quantum mechanics of classically chaotic systems. The formalism is employed to reveal how the spectrum of the quantum mechanical propagator of a density matrix is determined by the spectrum of the corresponding classical propagator of phase space density. Simple quantum--classical hybrid formulae for experimentally relevant correlation functions and time-dependent expectation values of observables are derived. The problem of decoherence is treated in detail, and highly unexpected cases of very slow decoherence are revealed, with important consequences for the long-debated realizability of Schrodinger cat states as well as for the construction of quantum computers."
Nonlinear complex open systems show great diversity in the process of self-organization, and that diversity increases as complexity increases. The measurement of complexity and the origins of the diversity of such complex systems are the focus of interdisciplinary studies extending across a wide range of scientific disciplines that include applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, ecology, sociology, and economics. Previous investigations have concentrated either on complexity or on diversity, but not both. This volume makes clear the relation between complexity and diversity with examples drawn from various disciplines. Compiles here are presentations from the Complexity and Diversity workshop held in Fugue, Japan, in August 1996. The contributions are the results of research in mathematical systems, physical systems, living systems, and social systems, and are contained in the four corresponding sections of the book. Mathematical expressions for the theory of complexity as a fundamental method along with realistic examples for application of systematic methods provide the reader with ready access to the latest topics in complex systems. |
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