"Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation."
The study of heat and temperature and their relation to energy and work.
Temperature: The measure of the average kinetic energy of particles in a system.
Heat: The transfer of energy between two systems due to a difference in temperature.
Thermal expansion: The increase in volume or length of a material due to an increase in temperature.
Ideal gas law: The empirical formula that relates the pressure, temperature, and volume of a gas.
First Law of Thermodynamics: The principle of energy conservation; energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or transformed.
Enthalpy: The sum of the internal energy of a system and the product of the pressure and volume.
Second Law of Thermodynamics: The principle that the total entropy of a system and its surroundings always increases in a spontaneous process.
Entropy: The measure of the disorder or randomness of a system.
Carnot cycle: The most efficient cycle that can be performed by an engine operating between two temperatures.
Thermal equilibrium: The state in which two systems have reached the same temperature and there is no net heat transfer between them.
Classical thermodynamics: This is the traditional branch of the study of thermodynamics that deals with macroscopic systems, ignoring the molecular or atomic structure of matter. It deals with concepts such as heat, work, energy transfer, and thermodynamic equilibrium.
Statistical thermodynamics: This branch of thermodynamics takes into account the microscopic structure of matter and how it influences the behavior of systems on a macroscopic level. It uses probability theory and statistical mechanics to describe the behavior of a collection of particles and their interactions.
Quantum thermodynamics: This relatively new branch of thermodynamics deals with the application of quantum mechanics to thermodynamic systems. It aims to understand how quantum effects, such as entanglement and superposition, affect the behavior of systems on a macroscopic scale. It has applications in fields such as quantum computing, nanotechnology, and energy conversion.
"The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of thermodynamics which convey a quantitative description using measurable macroscopic physical quantities."
"The behavior of these quantities 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, biochemistry, chemical engineering, and mechanical engineering, but also in other complex fields such as meteorology."
"Historically, thermodynamics developed out of a desire to increase the efficiency of early steam engines."
"French physicist Sadi Carnot (1824) who believed that engine efficiency was the key that could help France win the Napoleonic Wars."
"Scots-Irish physicist Lord Kelvin was the first to formulate a concise definition of thermodynamics in 1854."
"German physicist and mathematician Rudolf Clausius restated Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle and gave the theory of heat a truer and sounder basis."
"His most important paper, 'On the Moving Force of Heat,' published in 1850, first stated the second law of thermodynamics."
"In 1865 he introduced the concept of entropy."
"In 1870 he introduced the virial theorem, which applied to heat."
"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."
"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."