Contents
Explore the Lessons
General Introduction
Why study thermodynamics: heat-to-work conversion, heat engines, energy sources, and contemporary stakes.
A History of Thermodynamics
From Hero's aeolipile to Carnot, Mayer, and Clausius: the birth of thermodynamics and entropy.
Fundamental Concepts
Equilibrium, the zeroth law, walls, state variables and functions, and quasi-static transformations.
Energy Conservation: The First Law
Work, heat, internal energy, and the first law.
Reversibility and Irreversibility: The Second Law
Entropy, reversibility, and the second law.
Mathematical Structure: The Fundamental Relations
Fundamental relations and thermodynamic potentials.
Formal Structure: Changes of Variables
Differential calculus, the Legendre transform, and thermodynamic potentials.
Calorimetric and Thermoelastic Coefficients
Calorimetric and thermoelastic coefficients, and equations of state.
Phase Transitions
Phase diagrams, instabilities, and the Van der Waals gas.
Heat Engines
Two-reservoir cycles, the Carnot cycle, efficiencies, and statements of the second law.
Differential Geometry in Thermodynamics
The geometric structures underlying thermodynamics.
Maxwell's Demon
Information, entropy, and the limits of classical thermodynamics.
Endoreversible Cycles
Efficiency at maximum power and real heat engines.
Thermoelectricity
Thermoelectric effects and energy conversion.
Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics
Irreversible phenomena and Onsager's relations.
Climate and Thermodynamics
Thermodynamic applications to Earth's climate system.
Quantum Thermodynamics
Work, heat, and entropy at the quantum scale.