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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.
List of contents
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- Part I - The Big Bang (and the synthesis of the elements in stars)
- 1. The Big Bang: science
- 2. The Big Bang: discovery
- Part II - The Atom (hard spheres that attract and repel each other)
- 3. The Atom: science
- 4. The Atom: discovery
- Part III - Energy and the Conservation Laws
- 5. Energy: science (and some history)
- 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. Rudimentary version of the conservation of mechanical energy (1750)
- 13. Heat: the missing piece to the puzzle
- 14. Joseph Black and the rise of heat capacity
- 15. Lavoisier and the birth of modern chemistry
- 16. Rise of the steam engine
- 17. Caloric theory: beginning of its end
- 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 IV - Entropy and the Laws of Thermodynamics
- 24. Entropy: science (and some history)
- 25. It started with the piston
- 26. Britain and the steam engine
- 27. The Newcomen engine
- 28. James Watt
- 29. Trevithick, Woolf, and high-pressure steam
- 30. Sadi Carnot
- 31. Rudolf Clausius
- 32. William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)
- 33. The creation of thermodynamics
- 34. Clausius and the road to entropy
- 35. J. Willard Gibbs
- 36. Gibbs' 3rd paper
- 37. Practical applications and Gibbs energy (G)
- 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
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
- Epigraph Permissions
About the author
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.
Summary
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.
Additional text
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!
