New Perspectives In Thermodynamics

The material included in this book was first presented in a series of lectures de livered at the University of Minnesota in June 1983 in connection with the con ference "Thermodynamics and Phase Transitions". This conference was one of the principal events in the first year of operation of the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (lMA) at the University of Minnesota. The Institute was founded under the auspices of the National Science Foun dation of the United States and the University of Minnesota and is devoted to strengthening and fostering the relation of mathematics with its various applica tions to problems of the real world. The present volume constitutes an important element in the continuing pub lication program of the Ipstitute. Previous publications in this program have ap peared as lecture notes in the well-known Springer series, and future ones will be part of a new series "IMA Volumes in Applied Mathematics". Preface Until recently it was believed that thermodynamics could be given a rigorous foundation only in certain restricted circumstances, particularly those involving reversible and quasi-static processes. More general situations, commonly arising in continuum theories, have therefore been treated on the assumption that inter nal energy, entropy and absolute temperature are a priori given quantities, or have been dealt with on a more or less ad hoc basis, with emphasis for example on various types of variational formulations and maximization rules.

Modern Thermodynamics: From Heat Engines to Dissipative Structures, Second Edition presents a comprehensive introduction to 20th century thermodynamics that can be applied to both equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems, unifying what was traditionally divided into ‘thermodynamics’ and ‘kinetics’ into one theory of irreversible processes. This comprehensive text, suitable for introductory as well as advanced courses on thermodynamics, has been widely used by chemists, physicists, engineers and geologists. Fully revised and expanded, this new edition includes the following updates and features: Includes a completely new chapter on Principles of Statistical Thermodynamics. Presents new material on solar and wind energy flows and energy flows of interest to engineering. Covers new material on self-organization in non-equilibrium systems and the thermodynamics of small systems. Highlights a wide range of applications relevant to students across physical sciences and engineering courses. Introduces students to computational methods using updated Mathematica codes. Includes problem sets to help the reader understand and apply the principles introduced throughout the text. Solutions to exercises and supplementary lecture material provided online at http://sites.google.com/site/modernthermodynamics/. Modern Thermodynamics: From Heat Engines to Dissipative Structures, Second Edition is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students taking a course in thermodynamics.

This book introduces a new outlook on thermodynamics. It brings the theory up to the present time and indicates areas of further development with the union of information theory and the theory of means and their inequalities.

This book is a unique, multidisciplinary effort to apply rigorous thermodynamics fundamentals, a disciplined scholarly approach, to problems of sustainability, energy, and resource uses. Applying thermodynamic thinking to problems of sustainable behavior is a significant advantage in bringing order to ill-defined questions with a great variety of proposed solutions, some of which are more destructive than the original problem. The articles are pitched at a level accessible to advanced undergraduates and graduate students in courses on sustainability, sustainable engineering, industrial ecology, sustainable manufacturing, and green engineering. The timeliness of the topic, and the urgent need for solutions make this book attractive to general readers and specialist researchers as well. Top international figures from many disciplines, including engineers, ecologists, economists, physicists, chemists, policy experts and industrial ecologists among others make up the impressive list of contributors.

Thermodynamics Kept Simple - A Molecular Approach: What is the Driving Force in the World of Molecules? offers a truly unique way of teaching and thinking about basic thermodynamics that helps students overcome common conceptual problems. For example, the book explains the concept of entropy from the perspective of probabilities of various molecula

Clear treatment of systems and first and second laws of thermodynamics features informal language, vivid and lively examples, and fresh perspectives. Excellent supplement for undergraduate science or engineering class.

Over the past two decades we have witnessed something of a revolution in the natural sciences as thermodynamic thinking evolved from an equilibrium, or 'classical', perspective, to a nonequilibrium, or 'self organisational' one. In this transition, thermodynamics has been applied in new ways and in new fields of inquiry. Chemical and biological (evolutionary) processes have been analysed, increasingly, in non equilibrium thermodynamical terms. Economics has, since the late 19th century, relied heavily upon metaphors and analogies derived from the natural sciences - mechanical analogies cast in terms of traditional Newtonian physics and expressed in terms of Cartesian logic have been especially popular. Thermodynamics, on the other hand, has been less popular, despite its early application in economics by Stanley Jevons, the father of modern notions of utility maximisation in neoclassical economics, and despite its promotion in economic contexts by Paul Samuelson, the author of the definitive treatise upon which post war neoclassical economic theory was based, namely, his Foundations of Economic Analysis. The general neglect of thermodynamic thinking in economics was brought to our attention by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in the late 1960s, by which time economic theory, evidenced in, for example, the Arrow Debreu general eqUilibrium system, had become so sophisticated that it could not be penetrated by thermodynamical ideas. To Georgescu Roegen, this presented something of a crisis in economics because neglect of thermodynamics led, in his view, to blindness amongst economists to an economy/environment problem in the global economy.

Physicists firmly believe that the differential equations of nature should be hyperbolic so as to exclude action at a distance; yet the equations of irreversible thermodynamics - those of Navier-Stokes and Fourier - are parabolic. This incompatibility between the expectation of physicists and the classical laws of thermodynamics has prompted the formulation of extended thermodynamics. After describing the motifs and early evolution of this new branch of irreversible thermodynamics, the authors apply the theory to mon-atomic gases, mixtures of gases, relativistic gases, and "gases" of phonons and photons. The discussion brings into perspective the various phenomena called second sound, such as heat propagation, propagation of shear stress and concentration, and the second sound in liquid helium. The formal mathematical structure of extended thermodynamics is exposed and the theory is shown to be fully compatible with the kinetic theory of gases. The study closes with the testing of extended thermodynamics through the exploitation of its predictions for measurements of light scattering and sound propagation.

This original text develops a deep, conceptual understanding of thermal physics and highlights the important links between statistical physics and classical thermodynamics. It examines how thermal physics fits within physics as a whole, and is perfect for undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers interested in a fresh approach to the subject.

Treats subjects directly related to nonlinear materials modeling for graduate students and researchers in physics, materials science, chemistry and engineering.