ABSTRACT
It is interesting to see how the nonequilibrium theory leads, as a special case, to the equilibrium theory of Chapters 1–4. There are two situations in which we expect an equilibrium solution to come out of the generalized Boltzmann equation. The first and most obvious case is when U(R, T) vanishes for all T previous to the time of observation. Then the system has never felt the disturbance, and it remains in its initial state of equilibrium. The second case is when U(R, T) = U0, a constant, for all times after some time, say T0. Then if we observe the system at some time much later than T0 we should expect that the system will have had sufficient time to relax to complete equilibrium.
