Special Issue "Entropy, Order and Symmetry"

Managing Editor
Dr. Shu-Kun Lin
MDPI, Kandererstrasse 25, CH-4057 Basel, Switzerland
Website: http://www.mdpi.org/lin/
E-Mail:
Interests: molecular recognition; entropy; Gibbs paradox; irreversibility; stability; symmetry; similarity; diversity; diversity preservation; evolution; information theory; thermodynamics; enzyme inhibitors; heterocycles; isotopically-labeled compounds; Lewis acids and bases; quninoxaline N-oxides; photochemistry ESR; aromaticity; protein folding; nature of chemical processes

Assistant Editor
Ms. Laura Simon
MDPI, Kandererstrasse 25, CH-4057 Basel, Switzerland
E-Mail:

Dear Colleagues,

As a chemist, I have been trying very hard to set up an axiomatic formula of symmetry, order, entropy and stability. The task is truly very big and my efforts stirred up more problems than it appeared to have solved. This is the main reason that I am motivated to launch the journals Entropy (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/), Symmetry (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry/) together with several scientists, see the editorials at http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/1/1/1/pdf/ and http://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/1/1/1/pdf/. I sincerely welcome you to contribute your paper and bring some progress to the studies of this topic.

Dr. Shu-Kun Lin
Managing Editor

Related Special Issues in other Journals

Symmetry and Entropy in Entropy

Submission Information

All papers should be submitted to symmetry@mdpi.org. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special issue website.

Submitted papers should not have been published nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is a new international, peer-reviewed, quarterly open access journal published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International.

Open Access publication is free of charge for manuscripts submitted in 2009 and published in the first few issues od Symmetry. English correction fees and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF will be billed in certain cases (250 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections).

• entropy
• indistinguishanbility
• symmetry
• Curie-Rosen symmetry principle (or Curie symmetry principle, or symmetry principle)
• causality
• symmetry evolution
• continuous symmetry
• similarity

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Symmetry, Symmetry Breaking and Topology
Author: Siddhartha Sen Email: sen@maths.ucd.ie
Abstract: Symmetry is a feature used to describe the ground state property of many systems: from crystals to the vacuum state of grand unified theories. The symmetry of a system is desribed by group theory. The ground state of the system is invariant under a group G. A standard problem that arises is that this symmetry can change as the external parameters of the system are modified.The ground state symmetry changes from G to a subgroup og G. Such "phase transistions"have been extensively studied within the framework of an approach due to Landau. Recently there has been interest in looking at phase transitions that do not fit into the standard Landau picture. These are "toplogical phase transitions". In this review we first outline the approach of Landau from a slightly different perspective.. We use group theory and topological arguments to determine might restrict transitions from G to its subfgroups ie certain subgroups are not allowed as symmetries of the ground state. We describe two applications of this approach, one for finite symmetry groups and one for continous symmetry and include a brief summery of toplogical ideas we need. We then turn to a description of "toplogical phases" and outline a possible example of such a transition. Here the ground state has toplogical features and cannot be described simply in terms of symmetry groups.

Title: Aspects of Entropy
Author: Ingo Müller; E-mail: ingo.mueller@alumni.tu-berlin.de
Abstract: to be added

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Symmetries in Fluid Solid Interaction
Author: Ashwin Vaidya; E-mail: vaidyaa@mail.montclair.edu
Abstract: The subject of particle sedimentation in fluids is a gold mine to look for pattern selection problems. The steady and unsteady behavior of the particle interactions with fluids display some very interesting dynamics. If the fluid happens to be a non-Newtonian fluid the physics becomes even more complex and interesting. In this paper we will examine the symmetry issues that arise in some of these problems and investigate their mechanisms from a mechanical and also thermodynamic perspective.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Noether Symmetries and Covariant Conservation Laws in Classical, Relativistic and Quantum Physics
Authors: L. Fatibene, M. Francaviglia and S. Mercadante; E-Mail: mauro.francaviglia@unito.it
Abstract: We review the Lagrangian formulation of Noether Symmetries (as well as "generalized Noether symmetries") in the framework of Calculus of Variations in Jet Bundles, with a special attention to so-called "Natural Theories" and "Gauge Natural Theories", that include all relevant Field Theories and physical applications (from Mechanics to General Relativity, to Gauge Theories, Supersymmetric Theories, Spinors and so on). It is discussed how the use of Poincare'-Cartan forms and decompositions of natural (or gauge-natural) variational operators gives rise to notions such as "generators of Noether Symmetries", energy and reduced energy flow, Bianchi identities, weak and strong conservation laws, covariant conservation laws, Hamiltonian-like conservation laws (such as, e.g., so-called ADM laws in General Relativity, with emphasis on the physical interpretation of the quantities calculated in specific cases (energy, angular momentum, entropy, etc...) A few substantially new and very recent applications/examples are presented to show the power of the methods introduced: one in Classical Mechanics (definition of strong conservation laws in a frame-independent setting and a discussion on the way in which conserved quantities depend on the choice of an observer); one in Classical Field Theories (energy and entropy in General relativity, in its standard formulation, in its spin-frame formulation, in its first order formulation "à la Palatini" and in its extensions to non-linear gravity theories); one in Quantum Field Theories (applications to conservation laws in Loop Quantum Gravity via spin and Barbero-Immirzi connections).

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Classifying Measures of Entropy
Author: Angel Garrido
Affiliation: Departamento de Matemáticas Fundamentales, Facultad de Ciencias de la UNED, Paseo Senda del Rey 9. 28040-Madrid, Spain; E-Mail: agarrido@mat.uned.es
Abstract: Our paper analyzes some aspects of Uncertainty Measures. We need to obtain new ways to model adequate conditions or restrictions, constructed from vague pieces of information. The more classical entropy measure proceeds from some scientific fields; concretely, from Statistical Physics and Thermodynamics. With the time it was adapted by Claude Shannon, so creating the Information Theory. But Alfred Rényi shows that there exist different and valid entropy measures, according the purpose and/or the need of application. So, it will be very necessary to classify the different types of measures, and shown their mutual relationships. For these reasons, we attempt to obtain here an adequate classification of such fuzzy entropy measures.
Keywords: fuzzy measure theory; entropy in Information Theory; entropy in thermodynamics; symmetry
PACS Codes: 89.70.Cf; 05.70.–a; 33.15.Bh; 11.30.Rd

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Loss of Temporal Homogeneity and Symmetry in Statistical Systems: Deterministic versus Stochastic Dynamics
Author: P.D. Gujrati
Affiliation: Department of Physics, Department of Polymer Science, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA 44205; E-mail: pdg@uakron.edu
Abstract: Fundamental equations of motion possess temporal symmetry associated with time reversal invariance. The resulting trajectories are deterministic in that a given state evolves uniquely into the future, or is evolved uniquely from the past, giving rise to a one-to-one mapping between microstates. We demonstrate that the law of increase of entropy cannot follow from such a deterministic one-to-one dynamics possessing temporal symmetry. This can only happen if the dynamics becomes stochastic (one-to-many) in order to break temporal symmetry and homogeneity in the system. We propose that this stochasticity arises because of the presence of walls of the container, which confine the statistical system and separate it from the surrounding medium. We explicitly demonstrate this by studying a simple one-dimensional gas of point particles. Our approach provides a simple explanation of the recurrence and irreversibility paradoxes. We show that it is the ensemble average that is more meaningful than the time average if we wish to develop non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, which can also describe kinetically trapped non-equilibrium states in phase space.