Peter Atkins’ “The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction”, (Oxford University Press, 2010) is yet another in a series of thumbnail sketches that give readers, students, and even potential scholars fundamental information about subjects many will know little or nothing about, but which will contribute immeasurably to the fund of knowledge and information that they may already have – things that may have heard about, may know something about, but not in any great detail, and which just might connect with the knowledge they may already have, reinforcing and adding both depth and precision to what they already know and use in their daily lives.
So it is with this slim little book that arrived in this morning’s mail. Unwrapped and in hand by noon, and read cover to cover by 3:00 p.m., 94 pages of good solid information tucked inside its colorful covers, and including no fewer than 22 charts, graphs, and illustrations making clear the author’s central points. This is a book that I anticipate referring to again and again. And, I was delighted with the conversational way in which Atkins makes his points, making comparisons and figures of speech that are readily understood. Several times I caught myself murmuring ‘Oh yeah. So that’s the way it works;’ or,’ that’s what it means’.
Beginning with the concept of temperature (the Zeroth Law) Atkins takes us into the realm of temperature equilibrium, pressure, heat transfer, modes of measurement, molecules and their response to energy states.
Then, in Chapter 2, Adkins introduces us to the First Law, the conservation of energy, and how it works: path independence, what is meant by ‘work’, and he transfer as a mode of transferring energy from one set of molecules to another, and what happens then. He then tells us what happens during a process known as enthalpy as a process in which energy transfers within the system, and why energy can neither be created nor destroyed because time cannot be reversed.
In Chapter 3, Atkins discusses what is meant by ‘entropy’, and how entropy affects a system’s internal energy. This leads into a discussion of heat engines and their relative efficiency; why an engine that uses heat to create motive power needs also to have a ‘cold sink’ to dissipate accumulated heat because it is the differential in heat gradient that makes the engine work as intended in a cyclic process.
I further learned that entropy is a measure of the ‘quality’ of stored energy. Basically, action seems to be saying that as energy is transferred from its initial repository for potential use the release and flow of energy permeates the entire system and its surroundings; some of that energy performs useful work while the remainder dissipates into the system’s outer reaches and beyond as either heat energy or light, as with the furnace, or a celestial object, like the sun.
Entropy is also described as a measure of disorder as substances representing stored energy (i.e., petroleum or coal) are consumed through the process of oxidation and decomposition into simpler, entered substances for which their energy potential have been depleted or removed (coal ash or carbon dioxide and water vapor). In popular parlance entropy has been described as a measure of disorder, or is the tendency of complex objects or substances to degrade or decompose into their constituent parts. That appears to be an extrapolation of the basic concept; but specific to thermodynamics, not necessarily accurate.
Atkins then describes how refrigeration and heat pumps operate, and extrapolates from steam engines to chemical and biological changes in food items that essentially replicate the same effects.
In Chapter 4, Atkins describes the cost of converting stored energy into ‘work’ or life-sustaining energy – the so-called Gibbs energy that are accomplished through biologic processes alone. He then go on to describe the mechanics of freezing under conditions of physical changes along the temperature gradient running from a gas or vapor through a liquid form into a solid.
Chapter 5 speaks to the unattainability of absolute zero temperature and superconductivity. Atkins notes of the composition of matter and the nature of the electromagnetic spectrum combined to make attainment of 0° temperature on an absolute scale and impossibility. He states: “simply put, the entropy of all perfectly crystalline substances at zero temperature is zero”. Whether non-cyclic processes can eventually reach her approximate -273° Kelvin may be theoretically possible; but the process by which that would necessarily occur is subject to a power law, and with the logarithmic curve expanding into infinity. In effect, that would be like attempting to exceed the speed of light; and the fundamental nature of the universe will not allow that.
So, there we have it. Peter Atkins concise, neat little book is an absolute gem. I heartily recommend it.
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