The article by Chai and Shoji 1 appears to claim an original non-equilibrium statistical theory for self-organized boiling. We question both their claims, and also whether the non-equilibrium statistical basis of the article is sound.
The authors are citing Bejan, but not the work that is central for their paper, namely his article of 1997 2 or his book 3. In the article of 1997, Bejan proposes as a new law of nature “That a finite-size system, in order to persist, must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed global currents that flow through it”. Bejan proves that a confined system chooses a tree-like network to channel the heat that is produced at a constant rate everywhere inside.
Chai and Shoji 1 take as premise for their work that “an open system far from equilibrium always seeks an optimization process, so that the...
