Rational Thermodynamics

In the first edition of this book I tried to survey in brief compass the main ideas, methods, and discoveries of rational thermodynamics as it then stood, only five years after Messrs. COLEMAN & NOLL, while in Baltimore, had written the fundamental memoir that provided for the new science the one root theretofore wanting. A survey in the same style today would require an almost wholly new book, three or four times as long. As it was in 1968, again in 1983 a consecutive treatise restricted to the foundations would be premature, for at this moment they are under earnest discussion, probing analysis, and powerful attack by several students and from several directions. Because, although in the first edition I expressed some opinions I no longer hold and made some statements I should now recast or even re­ tract, it seems even yet to offer a simple introduction to some aspects of the field that remain current, I have chosen to reprint it unaltered except for emendation of slips and bettering of the English here and there.Table of ContentHistorical Introit. The Origins of Rational Thermodynamics.- Historical Introit. The Origins of Rational Thermodynamics.- Appendix to the Historical Introit. Failure of Carathéodory’s Attempt to Set the House in Order.- Lecture 1. Thermodynamics of Homogeneous Processes.- Appendix 1A. Thermodynamics for Beginners.- Lecture 2. Intern Dissipation.- Appendix 2A. Foundations of the Clausius-Duhem Inequality.- Lecture 3. Coleman’s Theorem.- Appendix 3A. Internal Constraints.- Lecture 4. Wave Propagation in Dissipative Materials.- Appendix 4A. Thermodynamic Effects in Wave Propagation.- Appendix4B. Discontinuous Thermokinetic Processes.- Lecture 5. Thermodynamics of Diffusion.- Appendix 5A. Diffusion Models Implied by the Theory of Mixtures.- Appendix 5B. Thermodynamics of Mixtures of Fluids.- Appendix 5C. A Theory of Multiphase Mixtures.- Appendix 5D. Applications of the Theory of Mixtures in Soil Physics.- Appendix 5E. Foundations of Mixture Theory.- Lecture 6. Thermodynamics of Chemical Reactions.- Lecture 7. The Onsager Relations.- Appendix 7A. On the Symmetry of the Heat-Conduction Tensor.- Appendix 7B. Phenomenological Onsagerism in Practice.- Prefatory Note, 1982, to Lectures 8, 9, and 10.- Lecture 8. The Maxwell-Boltzmann Equation as a Consecutive Equation of Continuum Mechanics.- Appendix 8A. “Constitutive Relations” According to the Kinetic Theory of Gases.- Appendix 8B. Gross Determinism and Its Implications for the Kinetic Theory of Gases.- Appendix 8C. Thermodynamics According to the Kinetic Theory of Gases.- Lecture 9. The Trend to Equilibrium According to the Kinetic Theory of Gases.- Lecture 10. Kinetic and Caloric Dissipation in Simple Shearing of a Maxwellian Gas.- General Appendices.- Appendix G1. Recent Research on the Foundations ofThermodynamics.- Appendix G2. The Status of the Heat Equation.- Appendix G3. Thermodynamics and Stability of Equilibrium.- Appendix G4. Foundations of Thermodynamics.- Appendix G5. The Kinetic Theory as a Prototype for Fine-Coarse Theory Pairs.- Appendix G6. On the Axiomatic Foundations of Temperature.- Appendix G7. Thermodynamics of Cyclic Processes.- Index of Authors Mentioned.- Index of Subjects.Springer Book ArchivesSpringer Book Archives