Recurrence in Physical and Social Systems

W. Weidlich
Additional contact information
W. Weidlich: Universität Stuttgart, II. Institut für Theoretische Physik

A chapter in Traffic and Granular Flow ’99, 2000, pp 3-14 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The problem of the relation between recurrence and irreversibility is an old and universal one: it has been discussed by philosophers, physicists, historians, and social scientists. After briefly mentioning philosophical formulations of the problem, the controversy, being deeply inherent in the notions of Statistical Physics, is discussed in terms of Poincare’ recurrence theorem versus irreversible equations such as the Boltzmann equation. The conclusion is that the neglection of certain correlations, i.e., an approximation, leads from recurrence to irreversibility. Thereupon the inverse problem is considered, in which manner recurrent, in particular periodic or quasiperiodic sub-processes can appear to be embedded in a globally irreversible process. Some approaches how to trace and recognize embedded recurrent (and even periodic) sub-processes are discussed. Finally, selected examples of model-based (quasi-) periodic processes in social systems are presented. They belong to the sectors demography (migration) and sociology (group dynamics).

Keywords: Boltzmann Equation; Irreversible Process; Collision Term; Future Phasis; Stochastic Trajectory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-59751-0_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783642597510

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-59751-0_1

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().