Equation 8 · The Arrow of Time and the Engine of Evolution
What does this equation mean?
Read the formula alongside the article passage below. Each part has a deeper page with its role in the equation, the supporting passage and nearby citations.
This mathematical expression combines the displayed quantities; its precise role follows from the surrounding article text. Read the equation part by part below; each part has a contextual explanation and a link to its mathematical background.
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Symbol W
W is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
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What the article says around this equation
[ 5 ] . The result does not say average work equals F — dissipation makes the ordinary average of W larger than F whenever the protocol is not quasistatic — it says a specific nonlinear average of a driven, dissipative, irreversible process reproduces an equilibrium quantity exactly, which is a much stranger and stronger claim.
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