Christian Maes

Goal functions and Variational principles, from analytical mechanics to irreversible thermodynamics.

Variational principles and the exploitation of goal functions for characterizing the dynamics of a system are ubiquitous in mathematical physics.  Their origin is somewhere with Maupertuis' and Fermat's principle, becoming a crucial tool in analytical mechanics.  We will discuss what becomes of these principles when dissipation is added, and how analysis meets probability theory in the characterization of complex behaviour.