Entropy and Its Physical Meaning

ISBN-13: 9780748405695 / Angielski / Miękka / 1996 / 208 str.

J. S. Dugdale; Dugdale S. Dugdale

Opis

This text gives students a clear and easily understood introduction to entropy - a central concept in thermodynamics, but one which is often regarded as the most difficult to grasp. Professor Dugdale first presents a classical and historical view of entropy, looking in detail at the scientists who developed the concept, and at how they arrived at their ideas. This is followed by a statistical treatment which provides a more physical portrait of entropy, relating it to disorder and showing how physical and chemical systems tend to states of order at low temperatures. Dugdale includes here a brief account of some of the more intriguing manifestations of order in properties such as superconductivity and superfluidity.

Spis treści

Part 1 Entropy in thermodynamics: temperature and heat - some historical developments; temperature and heat - a different approach; the first law of thermodynamics; the second law of thermodynamics; entropy - how it is measured and how it is used; entropy in irreversible changes. Part 2 The statistical interpretation of entropy: the statistical approach - a specific example; general ideas and development; the definition of a microstate; temperature and entropy in statistical mechanics; applications to solids; applications to gases - 1 - the classical approximation, 2 - Bose Einstein and Fermi-Dirac gases; fluctuation and Maxwell's demon. Part 3 Entropy at low temperatures: the third law of thermodynamics; low temperatures; the third law of thermodynamics and the unattainability of absolute zero.

O autorze

Sydney Dugdale is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics, University of Leeds.