Elements of Classical Thermodynamics:For Advanced Students of Physics

A. B. Pippard (Author)

9780521091015, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 January 1957

176 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1 cm, 0.24 kg

'If there possibly exist students who have at one time felt thermodynamics to be a somewhat dry and uninspiring subject, this book is to be recommended to them for refreshment.' American Institute of Physics

The laws of thermodynamics are amongst the most assured and wide-ranging of all scientific laws. They do not pretend to explain any observation in molecular terms but, by showing the necessary relationships between different physical properties, they reduce otherwise disconnected results to compact order, and predict new effects. This classic title, first published in 1957, is a systematic exposition of principles, with examples of applications, especially to changes of places and the conditions for stability. In all this entropy is a key concept.

Preface
1. Introduction
2. The zeroth and first laws of thermodynamics
3. Reversible changes
4. The second law of thermodynamics
5. A miscellany of useful ideas
6. Applications of thermodynamics to simple systems
7. The thermodynamic inequalities
8. Phase equilibrium
9. Higher-order transitions
Exercises
Index.

Subject Areas: Physics [PH]