Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Thermodynamics

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Over the past twenty-five years, I have used this book (or its earlier editions) as a student, teaching assistant, adjunct professor and as a practicing engineer and have found that I used this book more than the dozen or so books that I have on thermodynamics. This introductory book on thermodynamics contains many chapters devoted to the basic principles such as defining the state and the definition and determination of work. Later chapters include cycles, combustion, equilibrium and compressible flow. It is a very valuable reference for anyone involved in thermodynamics, because it contains a good overview of all the major topics and concerns.

Some of the reviews provided by current students are appropriate. The authors sometime assume that the first-time reader has a much stronger background than they do and or that can remember everything in the previous chapters. As a result, the sample problems are lacking in a detailed explanation of the concepts leaving the reader confused; however, once the reader understands thermodynamics, these sample problems can be a great help.

Hey,

I needed this book for Thermo 1. This book is ridiculous. Perhaps it's good as a reference - I wouldn't know because I need to LEARN thermo first. Anyways, this book sucks at teaching thermodynamics. The best way I learn is by doing problems that cover the material. If I come across something I don't understand, I like to go back and check example problems. Indeed, there are example problems galore in this book. But they are completely different from the homework problems. The example problems tend to be simplistic and even in Chapter 6 they tend to emphasize concepts and techniques that were taught in Chapter 2. The homework problems at the end then go into great depth with the new material and it's just ridiculous trying to understand it without an example problem which is actually helpful. Please note that, for me, this lack of instruction was compounded by a professor who quite literally taught straight from the book - perhaps you will have more luck. This book is definitely not a student friendly book.

Cheers

This is not a good book for an intro to thermo course! The writing is dry, the explanations poor, the math is too easy to get lost in, and the book assumes prior knowledge that an undergrad student isn't equipped with yet. I would recommend this for grad students or as a reference to professors, as the appendices are put together very well, but it is terrible book to actually learn thermodynamics from. I have had to purchase other books in addition to this one, despite the fact that I'm a good student. To its credit, there are in-chapter examples and a VAST number of end-of-chapter problems (usually over 100). If you must use this text for a thermo intro course, I highly recommend the solutions manual.

After using this book for one semester of thermodynamics I didn't really feel like I had a good handle on the material. There is far too much superfluous information in this book to make it thicker. Some of the sections I found to be unnecessary, especially the first chapter. The only redeeming qualities of the book are the exhaustive thermo tables and the great deal of homework problems at the back of each chapter. As a student, you might want a book which lays down the concepts before jumping so quickly to practice.

the text is the same in both the hard copy and SI Version. But the problems at the end of the chapters are different. Meaning the SI won't work for homework problem numbers.

A star was lost because the seller says that the SI version was exactly like the US version although this is false. It is in terms of the material, but if you have to work the problems in the chapters you need to make sure you look at the US version as the questions are not numbered the same. In one chapter of the SI version they did not even have the question at all. Other than that it was good.

I bought this book because I needed it for one of my classes. I decided to go with the softcover edition to save on cost and weight of the book, but didn't realize this meant I was buying the international edition. Beware because this book is not the same as the hardcover. The chapter problems are numbered differently than in the hardcover. I learned the hard way!

The first time I learned Thermodynamics was 23 years ago; I recently read this book to help a first time learner of Themodynamics and found this book is far more superb than the book I had many years ago. Perhaps, the compliment does not say anything. I found this book is easy to read; I like authors give outline of the chapter - what will be discuss and why, and ties the current chapter with previous chapters so that, as a reader, I can solidify my understanding. I found this book has all those ingredients. Also the book has a lot of examples. I also like that the author takes effort to divide problems into different categories: the concept questions versus exercises versus challenging problems.

Being quite satisfied with the book, I also sympathize with many readers who thinks they don't learn thermodynamics from the book. Thermodynamics is quite a difficult subject to learn; although the author has stressed that he believes in a systematic way to solve thermodynamics problems and he had make effort to include the 'process' of problem solving. I wonder if the author would take a step further to include "active thinking"-- reading a problem students should be thinking of characteristics of the problem. By helping a student who first learn thermodynamics, I realize that students have different approaches to a problem, and some of the approaches are not correct due to violation of the laws. I wonder if the author would want to include "other wrong" or "not preferred" solutions. By contrasting the "right way" and the "wrong way" or "not preferred" can be a great teaching tool.

This book assumes you memorize everything they say once. In an example in chapter six, they went from V/2 to V/2 x 788 x 37.12 without saying why, without using symbols to show what the numbers represent, without even including units to help you figure out what they are doing. It turned out to be a conversion mentioned on a page in a chapter, not in any of the tables or indexes for conversion. Trying to follow their train of thought is like trying to walk up a flight of stairs with three foot high steps.

Every book I get from Amazon always surprises me by how great of condition the books are in. It's like a brand new book and with so much less cost.