Glass transition and some problems of nonequilibrium thermodynamics

It is demonstrated that the conditions of local thermodynamic equilibrium are not met for glasses. This is of fundamental importance in describing die entropy change in the glass transition range. The relationships for evaluating the glass transition entropy Delta S-g from the number of different quasi-closed ensembles are derived within the framework of statistical thermodynamics. Particular emphasis is placed on the interrelation between the problems concerning the theory of the vitreous state and a number of unresolved questions of thermodynamics. The proposed approach provides a nontraditional interpretation of the known discussion between Boltzmann and Poincare.