On informational statistical thermodynamics (Q1330839)

We describe a microscopic approach to phenomenological irreversible thermodynamics based on the nonequilibrium statistical operator method. The construction of a unifying approach to the nonequilibrium statistical operator method in the context of Jaynes' predictive statistical mechanics is summarized. This is based on a variational principle, namely Jaynes' maximization of the information statistical entropy, incorporating nonlocality in space and time as well as an ad hoc criterion for irreversibility.