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Four Laws That Drive the Universe |
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Four Laws That Drive the Universe
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $13.37
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Author: Peter Atkins
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: 2007-09-27
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Pages: 128
Features:
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Editorial Review:
The laws of thermodynamics drive everything that happens in the universe. From the sudden expansion of a cloud of gas to the cooling of hot metal, and from the unfurling of a leaf to the course of life itself--everything is moved or restrained by four simple laws. They establish fundamental
concepts such as temperature and heat, and reveal the arrow of time and even the nature of energy itself.
Written by Peter Atkins, one of the worlds leading authorities on thermodynamics, this powerful and compact introduction explains what these four laws are and how they work, using accessible language and virtually no mathematics. Guiding the reader a step at a time, Atkins begins with Zeroth
(so named because the first two laws were well established before scientists realized that a third law, relating to temperature, should precede them--hence the jocular name zeroth), and proceeds through the First, Second, and Third Laws, offering a clear account of concepts such as the availability
of work and the conservation of energy. Atkins ranges from the fascinating theory of entropy (revealing how its unstoppable rise constitutes the engine of the universe), through the concept of free energy, and to the brink, and then beyond the brink, of absolute zero.
C.P. Snow once remarked that not knowing the second law of thermodynamics is like never having read a work by Shakespeare. This brief but brilliant book introduces general readers to one of the cornerstones of modern science, four laws that are as integral to the well-educated mind as such great
dramatic works as Hamlet or Macbeth.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
Hard to imagine who would benefit from or enjoy this book  2008-04-24
This presentation of an intrinsically interesting topic is a logically correct derivation - which seems very important to the author - but to what purpose? To understand it the reader has to be comfortable with subtle concepts of physics, and to enjoy it the reader has to appreciate a development presented as if for a mathematical proof, with apologies if any items are mentioned out of order. But for someone with that level of scientific interest and background, it doesn't offer any insights or new ways of looking at the topics. For instance, the author distinguishes between energy and enthalpy at an early stage, and requires the reader to know or very quickly learn the concept of work as force times distance. But then there's no reward for mastering the distinction and the reader is left to wonder why it's important. I'm a physicist and I greatly enjoy well written popular or semi-popular science books. This wasn't one of them.
Four Laws  2008-03-09
This book is unevenly written. Much of it would be of value to the college-educated reader, much of it would not.
I have a doctorate in physical chemistry (Atkins' field) and could work through it fairly easily. I would not recommend it to my daughter (doctorate in biochemistry) and I am not sure about recommending it to my son (doctorate in solid state physics).
The discussion of temperatures below the absolute zero appears to have been put in just to be cute.
Four laws that drive the universe  2008-02-18
This book is clearly written, presenting the zeroth law, first law, second law and third law of thermodynamics taking the mystery out of the usual presentations of this subject.
Professor Atkins presents the thermodynamic laws starting with comparisons with mechanical systems that most people would understand and builds upon that for an easily understood treatise on the subject matter.
Newton refreshed 2008-02-09
A refreshing read for those who have had even a brief background in physics but I suspect a struggle for the uninitiated! John Spencer
Scientific literacy presented. 2008-01-27
Let me quote Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington here:
"The law that entropy always increase..(lots about it in Atkins book)..-the second law of thermodynamics - HOLDS, I think, the supreme position among the Laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observers - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation".
Professor Atkins delivers short but kaleidoscopic and effective lecture just about above mentioned conviction. Lecture will be useful for many - students as well as for readers who left school long time ago (this is me) but like to get into popular cosmology/physics books with clear understanding of the most important topic in science - thermodynamics.
It is worth to mention briefly here, that the original formulation of the second law is not the ultimate truth. This book teaches only about classical thermodynamics, where actually systems are in equilibrium (nothing changes). Professor Atkins admits it in Conclusion at the end. But there is also non-equilibrium, linear thermodynamics that applies to things moving towards equilibrium (dissipative processes like thermodiffusion) and the fourth thermodynamics law (called "reciprocal relations") as a corollary of it. John Gribbin sheds some light on it in his fascinating and highly recommended popular-science new book : "Deep Simplicity - Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity".
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