A great variety of complex phenomena in many scientific fields exhibit power-law behavior, reflecting a hierarchical or fractal structure. Many of these phenomena seem to be susceptible to description using approaches drawn from thermodynamics or statistical mechanics, particularly approaches involving the maximization of entropy and of Boltzmann-Gibbs statistical mechanics and standard laws in a natural way. The book addresses the interdisciplinary applications of these ideas, and also on various phenomena that could possibly be quantitatively describable in terms of these ideas.
A great variety of complex phenomena in many scientific fields exhibit power-law behavior, reflecting a hierarchical or fractal structure. Many of the...
Metaphors, generalizations and unifications are natural and desirable ingredients of the evolution of scientific theories and concepts. Physics, in particular, obviously walks along these paths since its very beginning. This book focuses on nonextensive statistical mechanics, a current generalization of Boltzmann-Gibbs (BG) statistical mechanics, one of the greatest monuments of contemporary physics. Conceived more than 130 years ago by Maxwell, Boltzmann and Gibbs, the BG theory exhibits uncountable some of them impressive successes in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computational...
Metaphors, generalizations and unifications are natural and desirable ingredients of the evolution of scientific theories and concepts. Physics, in...
