Although glasses are disordered and complex systems, we show that important characteristics of the glass transition, such as a negative measured specific heat in the transition region, can be understood using a simple model of thermally activated hopping in a two-level system. The dynamics of the heating of a nonequilibrium state is modeled by a master equation. The calculation illustrates the connection between equilibrium and nonequilibrium, in particular, the determination of transition rates using the principle of detailed balance.
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