 Extremal principles in non-equilibrium thermodynamics

Energy dissipation and entropy production extremal principles are ideas developed within non-equilibrium thermodynamics that attempt to predict the likely steady states and dynamical structures that a physical system might show.The search for extremum principles for non-equilibrium thermodynamics follows their successful use in other branches of physics.According to Kondepudi (2008), and to Grandy (2008), there is no general rule that provides an extremum principle that governs the evolution of a far-from-equilibrium system to a steady state.