Abstract
Our focus in this chapter will be on the concept of internal energy, energy transfer, the first law of thermodynamics, and some applications of this law. The first law of thermodynamics expresses the general principle of conservation of energy. According to this law, an energy transfer to or from a system by either heat or work can change the internal energy of the system.
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For historical reasons, we choose W to represent the work done by the system. In other parts of the text, W is the work done on the system. This difference affects only the sign of W.
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© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Radi, H.A., Rasmussen, J.O. (2013). Heat and the First Law of Thermodynamics. In: Principles of Physics. Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23026-4_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23026-4_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-23025-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-23026-4
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