Block by Block: The Historical and Theoretical Foundations of Thermodynamics

This is the book I wish I had 25 years ago! Bob Hanlon describes in beautiful detail the meaning behind thermodynamics concepts that our teachers and books missed. He provides new perspectives on entropy, heat and work, and statistical mechanics. Along the way we get to meet our heroes, people like Carnot, Clausius, of course Gibbs. A gem of a book!

Autorentext

Dr. Robert T. Hanlon earned his Sc.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and subsequently conducted post-doctoral research at Karlsruhe University in Germany. His professional career took him to Mobil Oil Research & Development Corporation, the Rohm and Haas Company, and then back to MIT where he is currently involved with their School of Chemical Engineering Practice.

Klappentext

In this text, the study of thermodynamics is manipulated against the normal course of study. While students and academics will learn the concepts, formulas, and laws of thermodynamics, they will also begin to understand the historical circumstance behind it all.

Zusammenfassung
At the heart of many fields - physics, chemistry, engineering - lies thermodynamics. While this science plays a critical role in determining the boundary between what is and is not possible in the natural world, it occurs to many as an indecipherable black box, thus making the subject a challenge to learn. Two obstacles contribute to this situation, the first being the disconnect between the fundamental theories and the underlying physics and the second being the confusing concepts and terminologies involved with the theories. While one needn't confront either of these two obstacles to successfully use thermodynamics to solve real problems, overcoming both provides access to a greater intuitive sense of the problems and more confidence, more strength, and more creativity in solving them. This book offers an original perspective on thermodynamic science and history based on the three approaches of a practicing engineer, academician, and historian. The book synthesises and gathers into one accessible volume a strategic range of foundational topics involving the atomic theory, energy, entropy, and the laws of thermodynamics.

Inhalt

• Introduction

• Part 1 The Big Bang

• 1: The Big Bang: the science

• 2: The Big Bang: the discovery

• Part 2 The Atom

• 3: The Atom: the science

• 4: The Atom: the discovery

• Part 3 Energy and Conservation Laws

• 5: The science

• 6: Motion prior to Galileo

• 7: Galileo and the Law of Fall

• 8: Newton and the Laws of Motion

• 9: The lever

• 10: The rise of mv2

• 11: Bernoulli and Euler unite Newton and Leibniz

• 12: The conservation of mechanical energy

• 13: Heat

• 14: Joseph Black and the rise of heat capacity

• 15: Lavoisier and the birth of modern chemistry

• 16: The rise of the steam engine

• 17: Caloric

• 18: The ideal gas

• 19: The final steps to energy and its conservation

• 20: Julius Robert Mayer

• 21: James Joule

• 22: The 1st Law of Thermodynamics

• 23: Epilogue: The mystery of beta decay

• Part 4 Entropy and the Laws of Thermodynamics

• 24: The science

• 25: The piston

• 26: England and the steam engine

• 27: The Newcomen engine

• 28: James Watt

• 29: Trevithick, Woolf and high-pressure steam

• 30: Sadi Carnot

• 31: Rudolph Clausius

• 32: William Thomson

• 33: The creation of thermodynamics

• 34: Clausius and the road to entropy

• 35: J. Willard Gibbs

• 36: Gibbs' 3rd paper

• 37: Practical applications of Gibbs' theories

• 38: Dissemination of Gibbs' work

• 39: The 2nd Law, entropy and the chemists

• 40: Clausius - the kinetic theory of gases

• 41: Maxwell - the rise of statistical mechanics

• 42: Boltzmann - the probabilistic interpretation of entropy

• 43: Shannon - entropy and information theory

• Part 5

• Conclusion

• Acknowledgements and Bibliography