Criticisms of Constructal Theory
The main criticism of constructal theory is that its formulation is vague. The constructal law states that “For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it”, but there is neither a mention of what these “currents” are nor an explicit definition of what “providing easier access” means. As a result, constructal theory is very versatile, but often unconvincing: depending on the choices made for the currents and the “access” to them, it can lead to extremely different results.
The second criticism of constructal theory is that there has been no attempt to prove it from first principles. Contrarily to alternative theories of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, there is no proof of constructal theory based on simplified systems of statistical physics. The claim that constructal theory is a fundamental principle of thermodynamics itself has also been disputed .
Alternative theories include:
- Non-equilibrium thermodynamics
- Self-organization
- And various extremal principles in non-equilibrium thermodynamics
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