On a New Method in the Theory of Irreversible Processes

Abstract

A new method is presented for obtaining irreversible equations describing the approach to equilibrium in systems of many particles. The basic idea is the removal of secular terms arising in a perturbation expansion by the technique used in nonlinear mechanics. The irreversible equations then appear as consistency conditions for the existence of a well behaved expansion. The method relies heavily on the existence of the natural fine-scale mixing occurring in the dynamics.