Abstract
THE object of Prof. Trevor's book is to “develop the general laws of Thermodynamics with logical consecutiveness and mathematical clarity” for students Of physics, physical chemistry and engineering, for mathematicians and practising engineers. No applications of general principles are considered. The treatment departs consider-ably from traditional lines, as would be expected from the authors paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, 1908, and familiar words and phrases are used in new and disconcerting senses. Thus when a weight w is raised a small distance dh, “the inexact expression wdh denotes the work absorbed” (p. 12). The equation dE=dW + dQ “asserts that the work and heat absorbed are integrals of exact differential expressions” (p. 13). In connexion with the pv diagram, “an irreversible path cannot be depicted by a curve in the plane” (p. 18). The law of dissipation runs, “when a thermally and dynamically isolated body undergoes a change of state that admits of a reversible path, the change of the entropy of the body is positive” (p. 85), which appears unduly restrictive. In later chapters, for example, that on the porous plug experiment, the treatment conforms more to tradition. It is not easy to understand how the book can serve as “an introduction to th study of thermodynamics.”
The General Theory of Thermodynamics: an Introduction to the Study of Thermodynamics.
Prof.
J. E.
Trevor
By. Pp. x + 104. (Boston, New York, chicago and London: Ginn and Co., Ltd., 1927.) 1.60 dollars.
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The General Theory of Thermodynamics: an Introduction to the Study of Thermodynamics . Nature 120, 801 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/120801a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/120801a0