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"Irreversibility and dissipation"

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Time:

Thursday, 11. April 2019

Video-Recording for any system with MP4-support

- Video.mp4 (ca.306 Mb)

15:15 – 16:10

Juan MR Parrondo

(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Abstract :

We learn in undergraduate courses the intimate relationship between entropy and irreversibility:

any irreversible process is characterized by an increase of entropy. In the last years and using

concepts from information theory, we have been able to quantify irreversibility and relate this

measure of irreversibility to the entropy produced along a process. More recently, we have

applied these ideas to estimate the entropy production in biophysical processes.

The entropy production is closely related to relevant quantities in biophysics which are hard

to measure., such as the ATP consumption. Our technique allows one to estimate the entropy

production even in the absence of currents and flows, where the standard methods from

irreversible thermodynamics fail. We can in principle detect if a system is far from equilibrium

in the absence of currents. In biophysics, this is equivalent to discern if a process is active or

passive, valuable information to find out the physical mechanisms behind molecular motors

and other systems.