Research in the past thirty years on the foundations of thermodynamics has led not only to a better understanding of the early developments of the subject but also to formulations of the First and Second Laws that permit both a rigorous analysis of the consequences of these laws and a substantial broadening of the class of systems to which the laws can fruitfully be applied. Moreover, modem formulations of the laws of thermodynamics have now achieved logically parallel forms at a level accessible to under- graduate students in science and engineering who have completed the standard calculus...
Research in the past thirty years on the foundations of thermodynamics has led not only to a better understanding of the early developments of the sub...