Thermodynamics is the much abused slave of many masters physicists who love the totally impractical Carnot process, mechanical engineers who design power stations and refrigerators, chemists who are successfully synthesizing ammonia and are puzzled by photosynthesis, meteorologists who calculate cloud bases and predict fohn, boraccia and scirocco, physico-chemists who vulcanize rubber and build fuel cells, chemical engineers who rectify natural gas and distil f- mented potato juice, metallurgists who improve steels and harden surfaces, - trition counselors who recommend a proper intake of...