2012/12/14 by Hui‐Hai Liu, Liu, Hui-Hai
Computer Science · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Mathematical Modeling in Engineering #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD) #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #Groundwater flow and contamination studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1212.3516
openalex publication_date 2012/12/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper proposes a new thermodynamic hypothesis that states that a nonlinear natural system that is not isolated and involves positive feedbacks tends to minimize its resistance to the flow process through it that is imposed by its environment. We demonstrate that the hypothesis is consistent with flow behavior in saturated and unsaturated porous media, river basins, and the Earth-atmosphere system. While optimization for flow processes has been previously discussed by a number of researchers in the literature, the unique contribution of this work is to indicate that only the driving process is subject to optimality when multiple flow processes are simultaneously involved in a system.