Kirchhoff's Loop Law and the maximum entropy production principle

P. Zupanovic, D. Juretic, S. Botric

Published 2004-09-17Version 1

In contrast to the standard derivation of Kirchhoff's loop law, which invokes electric potential, we show, for the linear planar electric network in a stationary state at the fixed temperature,that loop law can be derived from the maximum entropy production principle. This means that the currents in network branches are distributed in such a way as to achieve the state of maximum entropy production.