Dr. Tryphon Georgiou
University of California, Irvine
Seminar Information
Thermodynamics was conceived in the 19th century to quantify the efficiency of steam engines, but its principles have since permeated disciplines ranging from chemistry and biology to astrophysics and the study of the quantum world. While classical thermodynamics describes idealized, quasi-static transitions, real engines cycle through finite time and the power—not just their efficiency—matters. Progress in this regime has been hindered by the complexities of non-equilibrium dynamics. Recent developments however, at the interface between stochastic control and thermodynamics, offered a path forward. In this new formalism, the state of a thermodynamic system is a probability distribution of an thermodynamic ensemble steered by external forces and experiencing stochastic excitation from heat sources. In the talk we will provide an overview of this developing subject and describe results of our ten-year research program that has led for the first time to quantitative bounds on the maximal power that can be drawn from thermal gradients in engineered and natural systems.
Tryphon T. Georgiou is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, and a Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Georgiou joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 2016 after almost thirty years at the University of Minnesota, where he held the Vincentine Hermes-Luh Chair (2002-2016) and served as a co-director of the Center for Control Science and Dynamical Systems at the University of Minnesota (1990-2016). He was educated at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece (1979) and the University of Florida, Gainesville (PhD. 1983). Professor Georgiou is a Fellow of the IEEE, SIAM, IFAC, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).