Speed-gradient principle for nonstationary processes in thermodynamics

The speed-gradient variational principle (SG-principle) is formulated and applied to thermodynamical systems. It is shown that Prigogine's principle of minimum entropy production and Onsager's symmetry relations can be interpreted in terms of the SG-principle and, therefore, are equivalent to each other. In both cases entropy of the system plays a role of the goal functional. The speed-gradient formulation of thermodynamic principles provide their extended versions, describing transient dynamics of nonstationary systems far from equilibrium. As an example a model of transient (relaxation) dynamics for maximum entropy principle is derived.