**Preface to "Dissipative, Entropy-Production Systems across Condensed Matter and Interdisciplinary Classical vs. Quantum Physics"**

The XLVII Congress of Polish Physicists was, for the first time in over hundred years in the history of the Polish Physical Society, held in Bydgoszcz, Poland, on 19–23 September 2021 (http://47zfp.utp.edu.pl/en/47th-congress-of-the-polish-physical-society/ (accessed on 26 August 2022)), gathering in total more than two hundred and fifty regular participants and more than forty invited speakers. Amongst them, one may find the name of a 2004 Nobel Prize winner, Professor Frank Wilczek, with his partly Polish roots and special online contribution titled "Time Crystals". Over the course of five days and around fifteen sessions, covering topics ranging from the teaching and popularization of physics, the history of physics, and general physics to the physics of high energy and cosmology, gravitation, and astrophysics, the participants presented their recent contributions to the field. One of those sessions was titled "Statistical, Nonlinear and Complex Systems' Physics", and another one, relevant for this book, was the session titled "Condensed Matter Physics". (Two other sessions on quantum information and photonics, as well as on biological and interdisciplinary physics, complement the survey of subdisciplines covered.)

The book has collected ten papers (plus an editorial) addressing a range of topics in condensed matter and interdisciplinary classical vs. quantum physics. All of them are linked together by statistical physics/mechanics methods. The selection emerged from a survey of topics presented at the XLVII Congress of Polish Physicists held in Bydgoszcz. The topics address problems of classical and quantum statistical physics. As for the classical side, these comprise: multistability and ergodicity breaking; the formation of dissipative (e.g., spherulitic) structures in a nonequilibrium bath; ion-influenced conformation of biopolymers (glycosaminoglycans) near biosurfaces; infectious-disease propagation in terms of social distancing; far-from-equilibrium information processing employing networks of chemical oscillators; and a problem of equivalence of the Carnot principle to the second law of thermodynamics and non-equivalence to the first Clausius and Kelvin principles. As for the quantum side, in turn, these include: mixedness, coherence and entanglement in three-qubit states; (anti)coherence caused by a thermal bath; and, finally, quantum graphs split at vertices as simulated experimentally by using microwave networks. All contributions can be united under the common flagship of maximum-entropy and entropy production principles experienced by the respective classical and quantum systems in (non)equilibrium conditions.

The book has focused on relevant and fundamental issues of statistical classical/quantum physics (and related subdisciplines), pointing to maximum-entropy and entropy production and/or the spread of information principles experienced by the respective classical and quantum systems in (non)equilibrium conditions. The studies presented in ten chapters, also including the editorial, disclose both the theoretical depth as well as the practical usefulness of the applied classical and quantum approaches.

> **Adam Gadomski** *Editor*
