Editorial Review:
It is well known that thermodynamics presents students with particular difficulties. They find the concepts evasive and the methods obscure. These problems arise because it is traditional to emphasize at the outset how general thermodynamics is. Unfortunately, when ideas are introduced in an unspecific context they fail to make contact with the student's experience - such ideas do not become part of the physical intuition of the student.
In this introductory text the subject is developed in stages beginning with the basic notions, which are illustrated using an ideal gas as a model system. The generalization of these concepts is achieved first using the classical laws of thermodynamics and second using the formalism of Gibbs to provide a systematic introduction to the thermodynamic potentials. Work processes on polarizable media subject to electric and magnetic fields are discussed and transformations of matter, including phase change processes and chemical reactions, are treated in detail. The book contains many worked examples, and approximately 250 questions, which are keyed to the text. The questions include traditional and applied topics, and longer questions have been programmed to guide the student.
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A Beautiful Book on Basic Thermodynamics 2000-11-14
There are many fine books on thermodynamics, many by the masters, and still readily available (Fermi, Planck....) There are also many books which combine statistical mechanics and thermodynamics in what is called `thermal physics'. The book by Carrington is intended for a first course in classical thermodynamics. It has the virtue of developing classical thermodynamics in a series of levels of increasing generality. At the first level, the author first starts with the ideal gas, and introduces the notions of temperature, states and processes, the first law, and entropy in a very concrete way. At the next level, Carrington generalizes to the classical laws of thermodynamics: the zeroth, first, second laws. He derives some useful modern results (the reversible process theorems) from the second law in Chapter 7, and discusses electric and magnetic work processes. At the third level of abstraction, Carrington discusses Gibbs's formulation in which states are emphasized over systems and their processes. States and their properties are encoded in what Gibbs called the fundamental relation: U = U(S,V). Gibbs showed how this viewpoint could be modified to include processes in which the quantity of matter changes. Finally, Carrington finishes with a discussion of applications, including changes of state and phase changes, critical phenomena, and chemical reactions. This is a book written with care and a great deal of pedagogical thought. It has many worked examples, and exercises which reinforce the text. One very nice feature is that some of the longer exercises have been written in a step-by-step fashion to make them more accessible.
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