Thermodynamics FUNDAMENTALS AND ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Bill and I talked many times about his idea of writing a new book on thermodynamics for engineers. We observed that there are many books on this subject which have one thing in common: They are very thick and every chapter becomes thicker with every new edition, by adding ever more examples and auxiliary material. We believed instead that the explanation of the very few founding concepts of classical thermodynamics, beautiful and challenging to the mind and expressed in formally very simple equations, would benefit from a much more essential treatment, which always starts with the description of the physical world at microscopic level. Concepts like energy and entropy must first be understood in their essence from situations that can be visualized with a few carefully conceived examples. Once these notions are clear, they can then be used to solve the inexhaustible variety of problems involving thermodynamics by means of a systematic approach, which always begins with applying these founding concepts.