Customer Reviews

Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book. It presents the subject along the lines championed by the great Gibbs and considerably clarifies and gives organization to the method. Don't be scared by the "axiomatic treatment" boasted: it is far from a dry axiomatic treatment like those to be found on books of logic. The "axioms" are rather synthetic expressions of the physical characterization of those situations where equilibrium thermodynamics applies. The book is very readable and user friendly. There is an important review of it by R. B. Griffiths, a great authority on these matters, that regrets some changes made with respect to the previous (first) edition. This was, mainly, the addition of a few chapters on statistical mechanics. I agree. It sort of contaminates the purity of the book's spirit. But, this is not serious. It was, after all, an addition. And the treatment of phase transitions was much updated and improved, in this edition. I think this book has no competition as a text in thermodynamics. It is the ideal preparation for a book like Landau's Statistical Physics, which, in its brief but spectacular synthesis of thermodynamics, also adopts Gibbs philosophy.

Why did I buy an older thermodynamics text, one first published in 1960? I trusted the advice of earlier reviewers.

They say: 1) The best treatment of classical thermodynamics that I have seen. The chapters on phase transitions are excellent and the mechanical model used to illustrate critical phenomena is brilliant. 2) It is far better than most books on the subject. 3) I think this book has no competition as a text in thermodynamics. It is the ideal preparation for a book like Landau's Statistical Physics. 4) The overview of the fundamentals of thermodynamics is without rival. 5) I think this book is a great option if you feel disappointed with the standard treatment of thermodynamics.

A few reviewers argued that Callen's text was less suitable for engineering students (too few heat-mechanical energy conversion problems) and chemical engineers (too few chemical mixture problems).

My trust was not misplaced. Thermodynamics, an Introduction to the Physical Theories of Equilibrium Thermostatics and Irreversible Thermodynamics, is an exceptional text. I give it five stars.

H. B. Callen offers a fascinating and insightful postulational approach to thermodynamics rather than the conventional inductive approach. He targets first year graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Based on my experience any reader reasonably proficient with thermodynamics should find Callen's approach quite stimulating.

The text has three primary sections: General Principles of Classical Thermodynamics (200 pages), Representative Applications (65 pages), and Fluctuations and Irreversible Thermodynamics (50 pages). A 50-page appendix offers a useful review of pertinent mathematics and other relevant topics. Answers are not provided to the chapter problems.

Interspersed throughout are brief chapters that review useful mathematical techniques. I appreciated the discussions of the Euler equation, the Legendre transformations, the extremum principle in the Legendre transformed representations, and the Maxwell relations (not the Maxwell EM equations). Callen provides useful tools like a thermodynamic mnemonic diagram (first introduced by Max Born) and associated procedures for reducing the formal manipulation of partial derivates to "a simple recipe".

Callen's text has been widely used. I reviewed the 1960 first edition, eighteenth printing. A second edition published in 1984 is easier to find and is often used today as a supplementary text.

Thanks again for the advice from previous reviewers.

The book gets five stars, but with the one caveat that this applies only to the first edition and not the second. Callen's book was the first to really push the axiomatic approach to classical thermodynamics, and the quality of the pedagogy on the subject prior to the emergence of the original version of this text in 1960 was, shall we say, "lacking." That said, actually spending money on the portion of this book devoted to statistical mechanics, when there are significantly clearer and cheaper presentations to be found (such as that by Chandler), is a little silly. The best thing about the introduction of new editions, however, is that they frequently drive down the price of the old - one can now easily find used, hardcover copies of the original version of this text for significantly less than half the cost of the new edition.

leaving aside the stat mech part, the book is just perfect. The presentation of the subject is not the traditional one (like, for example, Fermi's thermodynamics); it begins with the fundamental equation (Entropy versus the rest of the extensive variables) and all the postulates, and then goes on thru all thermodynamics. I found this approach much clearer, and more fun. From the first moment you are aware that with just one state equation (an equation between the intensive variables), you do not know the system completely. The thermodynamic potentials are introduced using in an explicit way the idea of the Legendre transform (but the math involved is very simple) and so the essence of the therm. potentials can be readily understood. I think this book is a great option if you feel disappointed with the standard treatment of thermodynamics, which to me is quite boring and clumsy.

A most intelligent book on the subject. The presentation of the axiomatics of classical thermodynamics and the derivation of the properties of system is the most rigorous I have ever read. Far away above most of the books on the subject. Excellent book for teachers also

Best treatment of extensive, intensive variables, thermodynamic potentials thermodynamic stability. I relied on the first edition of this text, along with other texts, for years while teaching thermo and stat mech. However, I preferred Gibbs's original argument for proving the equivalence of energy minimun at constant entropy to entropy maximum at constant energy. The book's weakness is that a student can learn everything in it without being able to apply the subject in the laboratory (some of the exercises are good in this regard, though). The opposite can be said about Zemansky. Forget Reif, a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas unsystematically organized and presented.

This books stands out in a subject where good books are hard to come by. The phenomenological basis of classical thermodynamics is very clearly explained in the opening chapters without any reference to statistical thermo. I found this very appealing since I'd always wanted to see some text that presented thermodynamics as it was originally developed: a complete theory in its own right, not dependent on statistical physics. The chapters on phase transitions are excellent and the mechanical model used to illustrate critical phenomena is brilliant. The last part on statistical physics is well worth reading though there may be other better texts for this. However, this book is NOT suitable for a course in engineering thermodynamics; there isn't much by way of heat-mechanical energy conversion problems for mechanical engineers, nor chemical mixture calculations relevant to chemical engineers.

The books overview of the fundementals of thermo is without rival. This book lays out the laws of thermo in a postulate form. From these postulates you can derive the entire theroy of classical thermo. This can be used to solve practical problems and derive thermodynamic relationships. It is a great refference.

This book takes you through the theory of thermo, but for a more practicle look at thermo see Smith and Van Ess Introduction to thermodymanics for chemical Engineers.

The first half of this book is perfect for the begining chemist or Chem Engineer. It is a great book for grad students also

I give this book five stars for the first half the second half is not all that great. Buy T. Hills Introduction to Statistical Mechanics for the thermostatistic part. It is from dover press and is cheap all Hills books are great and from dover.

In all honesty, when I first encountered this book, I hated it. Years later I took it upon myself to work my way through it as a way of restoring the confidence it had shattered and strangely, it seemed like a different book from the one I remembered. Now I really enjoy it for it's elegance and succinctness.

The approach is a little more abstract than most undergraduate physics courses, although ultimately not any worse than some advanced quantum mechanics courses. The prose is dense and formal. In some places, I think a few more worked examples might proove illustrative to many. I also think that this book suffers from a drawback that most thermodynamics textbooks suffer from, and makes extensive use of facts of multivariable calculus which are not typically dwelled on in a multivariable calculus course. In light of that, I would suggest that people review the book's appropriate appendix carefully in the beginning of a course, to help rectify a shortcomming of the usual mathematics curriculum.

None the less, all the problems are in reach given enough time and thought. In many cases, I think the most difficult thing about the problems is just the "book keeping" of signs and exponents. Also some problems, for example one in his section on the ideal gas law, are presented as independent problems really should be understood as a single multi part problem. I think the most valuable thing about Callen, in contrast to books with a more "conversational" tone is that every single word is there for a reason. A student is forced to meditate on exactly what he's saying. The ability to work a problem may hinge on the ability to understand and retain one sentence in a section. In this sense it's excellent preparation for more formal texts in other subjects without the added burden of potentially unfamiliar mathematics.

This is one of the best books for introductory thermodynamics. It was one of the textbooks for my first graduate level thermo course. It is very readable with no requirement of high level mathematics. In my opinion, it is a perfect starting point for anybody who has a basic knowledge in science. Both my friend and I were regretting not to have known about this book during our undergraduate years. I love its presentation of entropy -- it is very unique and easy to grasp.