Onsager’s two papers provide a general theory for irreversible processes such as heat transfer and current flow. Onsager derives a set of “reciprocal relations” that have, for example, been used to predict the behavior of thermoelectric and spintronic devices.
“Reciprocal relations” occur between different pairs of forces and flows in a variety of physical systems. For example, consider fluid systems described in terms of temperature, matter density, and pressure. In this class of systems, it is known that temperature differences lead to heat flows from the warmer to the colder parts of the system; similarly, pressure differences will lead to matter flow from high-pressure to low-pressure regions. What is remarkable is the observation that, when both pressure and temperature vary, temperature differences at constant pressure can cause matter flow (as in convection) and pressure differences at constant temperature can cause heat flow. Perhaps surprisingly, the heat flow per unit of pressure difference and the density (matter) flow per unit of temperature difference are equal. This equality was shown to be necessary by Lars Onsager using statistical mechanics as a consequence of the time reversibility of microscopic dynamics (microscopic reversibility). The theory developed by Onsager is much more general than this example and capable of treating more than two thermodynamic forces at once, with the limitation that “the principle of dynamical reversibility does not apply when (external) magnetic fields or Coriolis forces are present”, in which case “the reciprocal relations break down”
