The Transport of Heat

Abstract

In this chapter simple aspects of the transport of heat will be introduced, extending the treatment of thermal processes into the realm of phenomena which are missing from the theory of the thermodynamics of ideal fluids. Many texts on thermodynamics and on heat transfer sharply distinguish between the two subjects, which only emphasizes that a unified presentation of all thermal phenomena is called for. While we will not achieve the stated goal in this chapter, the ground will be prepared for a theory of continuum thermodynamics of which we will get a first glimpse in the Epilogue.

It is almost always emphasized that thermodynamics is concerned with reversible processes and equilibrium states, and that it can have nothing to do with irreversible processes... . But this verbalism gets nowhere; physics is not thereby absolved from dealing with irreversible processes.

P. W. Bridgman, 1953