Connections between Microcosmos and Macrocosmos

 

 

 

 

 

Statistical mechanics, together with classical, quantum and relativistic mechanics, and electromagnetism, is one of the pillars of contemporary physics. The history of its basic formulation started in the 1870’s with Boltzmann, and later with Gibbs. One of its central concepts is the entropy. This crucial aspect has physically and mathematically evolved quite a lot during the last 140-150 years. Its basic ingredients will be introduced, and some of its applications in natural, artificial and social sciences will be briefly described.

 

Professor Constantino Tsallis is a physicist in the area of statistical mechanics, head of the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, in Rio de Janeiro, and also head of the National Institute of Science and Technology for Complex Systems of Brazil. He has worked in a variety of theoretical subjects in the areas of critical phenomena, chaos and nonlinear dynamics, economics, cognitive psychology, immunology, population evolution, among others. Since two decades, he is focusing on the entropy and the foundations of statistical mechanics, as well as on some of their scientific and technological applications. Indeed, he proposed in 1988 a generalization of Boltzmann-Gibbs entropy and statistical mechanics. This generalization is presently being actively studied around the world: a Bibliography containing more than 3,000 directly related articles, by over 5,000 scientists from all over the world, is available at http://tsallis.cat.cbpf.br/biblio.htm