Time reversibility, computer simulation, algorithms, chaos (Q2886996)

This new edition (for a review of the first edition (1999), see Zbl 1051.37507) has its title expanded by the term ``algorithms''. This reflects the major shift in the authors' attitude towards presenting as many as possible worked out examples, whose computer assisted solutions are in the reach, while analytic methods are either hard or intractable to physics-oriented newcomers in the field. The book gives a fairly personal account of a life-long research on the origin of irreversibility in the classical world whose dynamical features are interpreted microscopically in terms of time-reversible systems (relates to the Loschmidt paradox). Links with the Gallavotti-Cohen chaotic hypothesis may be identified, although the authors' aims are more modest. They employ computer simulations (Fortran codes are presented in detail for each worked out example) with the aim to make compatible an irreversible second law of thermodynamics with an underlying time-reversible mechanics. The ultimate resolution of the ``irreversibility paradox'' is rooted in the Lyapunov unstable dynamical behavior of various nonlinear dynamical systems (maps and flows), where the emergence of attracting sets and their fractal structure appears to be fundamental to the presented approach. Origins of this research line (deterministic thermostats, Nosé-Hoover oscillator) are outlined. As the authors mention, a useful complement to this book and its leading ideas are two monographs by \textit{D. J. Evans} and \textit{G. P. Morriss} [Statistical mechanics of nonequilibrium liquids. London: Academic Press (1990; Zbl 1145.82301)] and \textit{R. Klages} [Microscopic chaos, fractals and transport in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics (2007; Zbl 1127.82002)].