Abstract
This introductory chapter informs the reader that this book is a disquisition of heat and energy. Understanding of heat and energy has two general requirements: the reader must achieve mastery of both the first law of thermodynamics and the second law of thermodynamics , and the reader must appreciate the difference between thermodynamic objects as systems and mechanical objects as mere mass bodies. Treatment of heat begins, in this chapter, with the introduction of the intensity of heat , i.e., temperature , and equation of state for ideal gases and ideal-gas mixtures.
Just as Newton first conclusively showed that this is a world of masses, so [Sadi Carnot and] Willard Gibbs first revealed it as a world of systems.
—L.J. Henderson in The Order of Nature [1] [p. 126 (1917)].
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Notes
- 1.
Though Carnot was not a member of the French Laplacian School, the center of the caloric theory, and Carnot’s theory of heat is not a caloric theory of heat as this essay will argue, he did explicitly use the concept of “caloric” for studying the relation between “caloric” and power. (Though, it is important to note as discussed in Chaps. 4 and 8 that his use of the term was fundamentally different from the Laplacian School.) Fourier, on the other hand, did not, strictly speaking, assume the existence of caloric. In fact, he called his theory Théorie analytique de la chaleur stressing the analytical treatment without speculating on the nature of heat . Even though, since he only focused on the study of heat flow his mathematical theory was completely consistent with the central premise of the caloric theory that heat is conserved.
- 2.
This discussion of temperature follows the conventional approach, which preceded the introduction of entropy . That is, once the dimension of temperature was determined, the dimension of entropy was linked via its definition to the dimension of temperature . Reassessment of the meaning of temperature and entropy in recent years has led to the suggestion that entropy should be dimensionless, and temperature , correspondingly, is then redefined as tempergy—which has the dimension of energy. [H. S. Leff (1999) Am. J . Phys. 67(12):1114–1122].
This is an interesting reinterpretation. A dimensionless reduced entropy and an energy-dimension tempergy, however, do not infer that there is no need for a new dimension for the conjugate pair of tempergy-reduced entropy or temperature-entropy . What is significant is the existence of a new FUNDAMENTAL DIMENSION with the introduction of the conjugate pair.
References
Henderson LJ (1917) The Order of Nature. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Schumacher EF (1973) Small is Beautiful. Harper and Row, New York (p. 47)
Planck M (1969) Treatise on Thermodynamics, 3rd edition. Dover, New York
Callen HB (1st edition, 1960; 2nd edition, 1985) Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics. Wiley, New York
Kondepudi D, Prigogine I (1998) Modern Thermodynamics: From Heat Engines to Dissipative Structures. Wiley, New York
Zemansky MK (1943) Heat and Thermodynamics, 2nd edition. McGraw-Hill, New York
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Wang, LS. (2020). Introduction: Temperature and Some Comment on Work. In: A Treatise of Heat and Energy. Mechanical Engineering Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05746-6_1
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