"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."
Study of heat and temperature.
Fundamental Concepts: Basic principles and terminology used in Thermodynamics including system, surroundings, state, process, property, and equilibrium.
Thermodynamic Systems: Study of various types of systems including closed, open, and isolated systems, along with their properties and behavior.
Properties of Substances: Study of different properties of substances like temperature, pressure, volume, and density, and their relation to each other.
Thermodynamic Processes: Study of different types of thermodynamic processes like isothermal, adiabatic, isobaric, and isochoric processes, and their properties.
First Law of Thermodynamics: Introduction and interpretation of the first law of thermodynamics, including energy conservation and the relationship between heat and work.
Work and Heat: Different types of work, including expansion/compression work, flow work, and shaft work, as well as various methods of heat transfer - convection, conduction, and radiation.
Internal Energy and Enthalpy: Introducing internal energy and enthalpy as thermodynamic properties of a system, along with their relationship to work and heat.
Second Law of Thermodynamics: Introduction and interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics, including directionality and irreversibility of processes and entropy.
Entropy: Thorough study of entropy as a property of a system, including entropy production, Clausius inequality and the Carnot cycle.
Cycles: Study of thermodynamic cycles including the Carnot cycle, Rankine cycle, Brayton cycle, and refrigeration cycles.
Mixtures and Solutions: Study of thermodynamics of mixtures and solutions including phase diagrams, partial molar quantities, and thermodynamics of mixing.
Statistical Thermodynamics: Introduction to statistical mechanics and its connection to thermodynamics, including Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution and entropy in terms of probability.
"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."