Three independent literatures have contributed to the understanding of irreversibility in economics. The first focuses on the future opportunities forgone by investments with irreversible consequences. The second considers irreversibility (and hysteresis) in the context of the dynamics of systems characterized by multiple equilibria. The third, with roots in complex systems theory, focuses on e...

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Irreversibility is an important issue for many quantum processes. Loschmidt echoes, originally introduced as a way to gauge sensitivity to perturbations in quantum mechanics, have turned out to be a useful tool for its investigation. Following the philosophy supporting this idea, and using quantum trajectories as defined in the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics due to Bohm, we introduc...

© 2006 American Institute of Physics, S-0031-9228-0608-210-X The origin of irreversible behavior is a persistent theme in physics. Since the fundamental microscopic laws, including both Newton’s laws and quantum mechanics, are reversible (except for the weak interactions), the fact that most macroscopic systems behave irreversibly has long been recognized as an important issue. The problem of u...

The intermetallic compound SmMn2Ge2, displaying multiple magnetic phase transitions, is being investigated in detail for its magnetization behavior near the 145 K first order ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition occuring on cooling, in particular for thermomagnetic history effects in the magnetization data. The most unusual finding is that the thermomagnetic irreversibility, [= M (T)-M...

One observes that a considerable level of confusion remains about some of those aspects of irreversibility, entropy generation and ‘the arrow of time’ which actually are well understood. This demands that great care must be taken in any discussion of irreversibility to use clear-cut notions and precise language in order to be definite about which property follows from which assumption. In this ...

Article history: Received 5 July 2012 Received in revised form 25 September 2012 Accepted 29 September 2012 The fatigue crack growth of the nickel-based superalloy Haynes 230 was investigated at room temperature and 900 °C using digital image correlation (DIC). As expected, the crack growth rates at high temperature were much faster than at room temperature. However, the crack closure levels, w...