Classical Thermodynamics in a Nutshell

Derivation of classical thermodynamics is usually difficult to understand, partly because of the way thermodynamics itself evolved. Thermodynamics was discovered in a romantic age (as opposed, for example, to the enlightenment period when Newton’s laws evolved), and the exposition consists of stories instead of mathematics. We have stories about refrigerators, furnaces, laws, forbidden processes, the universe, perpetual motion, and so forth. We are not so bold to pontificate this way today.

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Robert Mitchell