States of minimum dissipation in magnetohydrodynamics: a review

The hypothesis that the steady, or statistically steady, states of a magnetofluid can be predicted by minimizing the integral of the total energy dissipation is discussed in relation to theorems in fluid dynamics. A survey is made of the recent literature wherein the hypothesis is used to predict magnetofluid behaviour and some related work. A detailed discussion of boundary conditions is provided, and we close with a brief summary of the current state of research.