Chemical Thermodynamics

Abstract

According to an anecdote, the German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld said the following in the 1940s: “Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don’t understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don’t understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn’t bother you any more.” Things have changed much since then. University education has become available for a large number of students, and the Bologna process has led to a three-tier system also in the European Higher Education Area. As a result, most of the students of natural sciences or engineering do not have the opportunity any more to study subjects such as thermodynamics over and over again in order to gain deeper knowledge. Fortunately enough, in the second half of the twentieth century a new approach for teaching the foundations of thermodynamics emerged. This postulatory approach does not lead the student through a tedious historical development of the subject, but rather introduces thermodynamics by stating four concise postulates. These postulates facilitate the understanding of the subject by developing an abstract mathematical foundation from the beginning. This however rewards the student with an easy understanding of the subject, and the postulates are directly applicable to the solving of actual thermodynamic problems. This book follows the postulatory approach used by Herbert B. Callen in a textbook first published in 1960. The basics of thermodynamics are described as briefly as possible whilst ensuring that students with a minimal skill of calculus can also understand the principles, by explaining all mathematical manipulations in enough detail. Subsequent chapters concerning chemical applications always refer to a solid mathematical basis derived from the postulates. The concise and easy-to-follow structure has been maintained – also in the chapters on applications for chemically important topics.