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Thermodynamics
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Annotated color version of the original 1824 Carnot heat engine showing the hot body (boiler), working body
(system, steam), and cold body (water), the letters labeled according to the stopping points in Carnot cycle.
Thermodynamics
The classical Carnot heat engine
Branches[show]
Laws[show]
Systems[show]
System properties[show]
Material properties[show]
Equations[show]
Potentials[show]
 History
 Culture
[show]
Scientists[show]
 Book
 Category
 v
 t
 e
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat and temperature, and

their relation to energy, work, radiation, and properties of matter. The behavior of these
quantities is governed by the four laws of thermodynamics which convey a quantitative
description using measurable macroscopic physical quantities, but may be explained in
terms of microscopic constituents by statistical mechanics. Thermodynamics applies to
a wide variety of topics in science and engineering, especially physical
chemistry, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering, but also in fields as
complex as meteorology.
Historically, thermodynamics developed out of a desire to increase the efficiency of
early steam engines, particularly through the work of French physicist Nicolas Léonard
Sadi Carnot (1824) who believed that engine efficiency was the key that could help
France win the Napoleonic Wars.[1] Scots-Irish physicist Lord Kelvin was the first to
formulate a concise definition of thermodynamics in 1854 [2] which stated, "Thermo-
dynamics is the subject of the relation of heat to forces acting between contiguous parts
of bodies, and the relation of heat to electrical agency."
The initial application of thermodynamics to mechanical heat engines was quickly
extended to the study of chemical compounds and chemical reactions. Chemical
thermodynamics studies the nature of the role of entropy in the process of chemical
reactions and has provided the bulk of expansion and knowledge of the field. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
[11]
Other formulations of thermodynamics emerged. Statistical thermodynamics, or
statistical mechanics, concerns itself with statistical predictions of the collective motion
of particles from their microscopic behavior. In 1909, Constantin
Carathéodory presented a purely mathematical approach in an axiomatic formulation, a
description often referred to as geometrical thermodynamics.
Contents
 1Introduction
 2History
 3Etymology
 4Branches of thermodynamics
o 4.1Classical thermodynamics
o 4.2Statistical mechanics
o 4.3Chemical thermodynamics
o 4.4Equilibrium thermodynamics
 5Laws of thermodynamics
o 5.1Zeroth Law
o 5.2First Law
o 5.3Second Law
o 5.4Third Law
 6System models
 7States and processes
 8Instrumentation
 9Conjugate variables
 10Potentials
 11Applied fields
 12See also
o 12.1Lists and timelines
 13Notes
 14References
 15Further reading
 16External links
Introduction[edit]
A description of any thermodynamic system employs the four laws of
thermodynamics that form an axiomatic basis. The first law specifies that energy can be
exchanged between physical systems as heat and work.[12] The second law defines the
existence of a quantity called entropy, that describes the direction, thermodynamically,
that a system can evolve and quantifies the state of order of a system and that can be
used to quantify the useful work that can be extracted from the system. [13]
In thermodynamics, interactions between large ensembles of objects are studied and
categorized. Central to this are the concepts of the thermodynamic system and
its surroundings. A system is composed of particles, whose average motions define its
properties, and those properties are in turn related to one another through equations of
state. Properties can be combined to express internal energy and thermodynamic
potentials, which are useful for determining conditions for equilibrium and spontaneous
processes.
With these tools, thermodynamics can be used to describe how systems respond to
changes in their environment. This can be applied to a wide variety of topics
in science and engineering, such as engines, phase transitions, chemical
reactions, transport phenomena, and even black holes. The results of thermodynamics
are essential for other fields of physics and for chemistry, chemical
engineering, corrosion engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical
engineering, cell biology, biomedical engineering, materials science, and economics, to
name a few.[14][15]
This article is focused mainly on classical thermodynamics which primarily studies
systems in thermodynamic equilibrium. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is often
treated as an extension of the classical treatment, but statistical mechanics has brought
many advances to that field.

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Thermodynamics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The classical Carnot heat engine

Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat and temperature, and

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