Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 2004 (2004), Issue 1, Pages 155-168
doi:10.1155/S1026022604310034
Microscopic irreversibility
Department of Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309-0395, CO, USA
Received 16 October 2003
Copyright © 2004 Karl Gustafson. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
First, I will recount the substance of several important
conversations I had with Ilya Prigogine over the years. There is
no doubt in my mind that Professor Prigogine firmly believed in
the underlying stochasticity of the universe. Second, I will
summarize my curiosity about the principle of detailed balance.
In my opinion, so far it has always been put in by hand. Third, I
will advance my own theory of microscopic irreversibility, that
is, irreversibility at the quantum level. This involves new
concepts of probability preference and probability violation. A
manifestation of this irreversibility may be seen during emission
of bound-free photons during field-matter interactions. Entropy
increase is tied to radiation increase, and the notion of heat
bath becomes light bath.