Generalized Thermodynamics: The Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes and Generalized Hydrodynamics

Despite a long history of almost 180 years stretching back to the times of Carnot and, later, Clausius and Lord Kelvin, amongst others following him, the subject of thermodynamics has not as yet seen its full maturity, in the sense that the theory of irreversible processes has remained incomplete. The works of L. Onsager, J. Meixner, I. Prigogine on the thermodyn- ics of linear irreversible processes are, in effect, the early efforts toward the desired goal of giving an adequate description...