Thermodynamics of small systems

After an informal review of the basic ideas in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, I collect sparse observations on the statistical Physics of small systems (small N few degrees of freedom, nanometer scale in size). Inspired by the contributions of Philippe Chomaz, Francesca Gulminelli and Michel Farizon, presented in this section, I would like to envisage connections with other contributions in the volume, and with other themes of research, close and not so close; the hamiltonian mean field model, the bioPhysical chemistry of dilute protein solutions and the non equilibrium properties of small systems. Further investigations on the analogies between effectively and real long-range systems could open new perspectives for a thermodynamic understanding of matter at the nanoscale, but also on larger scales.it seems a matter of relaxation times. © 2008 American Institute of Physics