Everything about Irreversibility totally explained
In science, a
process that isn't reversible is called
irreversible. This concept arises most frequently in
thermodynamics, as applied to
processes. Irreversibility is also used in
economics to refer to investment or expenditures that involve large
sunk costs.
From a thermodynamics perspective, all natural processes are irreversible. The phenomenon of irreversibility results from the fact that if a
thermodynamic system of interacting molecules is brought from one
thermodynamic state to another, the configuration or arrangement of the atoms and molecules in the system will change as a result. A certain amount of "transformation energy" will be used as the molecules of the "working body" do work on each other when they change from one state to another. During this transformation, there will be a certain amount of heat energy loss or
dissipation due to intermolecular friction and collisions; energy that won't be recoverable if the process is reversed.
Absolute versus Statistical reversibility
Thermodynamics defines the statistical behaviour of large numbers of entities, whose exact behavior is given by more specific laws. Since the fundamental laws of physics are all time-reversible, it can be argued that the irreversibility of thermodynamics must be statistical in nature, that is, that it must be merely highly unlikely, but not impossible, that a system will lower in entropy.
History
The German physicist
Rudolf Clausius, in the 1850s, was the first to mathematically quantify the phenomenon of irreversibility in nature through his introduction of the concept of
entropy. In his 1854 memoir “On a Modified Form of the Second Fundamental Theorem in the Mechanical Theory of Heat” Clausius states:
Complex Systems
The difference between reversible and irreversible events has particular explanatory value in
complex systems (such as living organisms, or
ecosystems). According to the biologists
Humberto Maturana and
Francisco Varela, living organisms are characterized by
autopoiesis, which enables their continued existence. More primitive forms of self-organizing systems have been described by the physicist and chemist
Ilya Prigogine. In the context of complex systems, events which lead to the end of certain self-organising processes, like death, extinction of a species or the collapse of a meteorological system can be considered as irreversible. Even if a
clone with the same organizational principle (for example identical DNA-structure) could be developed, this wouldn't mean that the former distinct system comes back into being. Events to which the self-organizing capacities of organisms, species or other complex systems can adapt, like minor injuries or changes in the physical environment are reversible. However, adaptation depends on import of
negentropy into the organism, thereby increasing irreversible processes in its environment. Ecological principles, like those of
sustainability and the
precautionary principle can be defined with reference to the concept of reversibility.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Irreversibility'.
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