Re: Thermodynamics textbook

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

Ruth Ann Levinson wrote:
> What thermodynamics textbook (junior level) are you using at your
> university?  Or, what thermo book did you use when you were an
> undergrad?  Did you like it, dislike it?  Why?  I ask because I would
> like to review some books other than what we use here at SIU (Sears &
> Salinger).

Please allow me to answer a slightly different question:  If
you are going to be reviewing thermo books, start by reading
_Thermal Physics_ by Kittel and Kroemer.  It is far and away
the most sensible thermo book I've ever seen.  The authors
have a "feel" for the subject that I've never seen elsewhere.
And they manage to steer clear of the multitudinous misconceptions
that litter most texts.

For example, many texts start by exploiting the example of
the ideal gas.  All too often, the students don't get much
beyond this point, and they are left with all sorts of
misconceptions, notably the notion that all thermal energy
is kinetic.  Yuuuck!

K+K don't take this path ... which is the book's strength
as well as its weakness.  If what you want is a quick and
dirty tryst with an ideal gas, you won't get it here.  You'll
either understand the whole package (energy, entropy, etc.)
or nothing at all.

The more you know about the subject, the more you'll like
this book.  Conversely, alas, intro-level students, especially
if they don't have a very strong background, probalby aren't
going to like it.

So I'm not saying you should rush out and adopt it as your
text.  But you really ought to read it.  It'll give you a
steely standard by which to judge the other books.

In the same spirit, you probably want to re-read Feynman
volume I chapters 44, 45, and 46.

In particular, I would look real hard for a book that made
a point of _defining_ entropy in terms of P log P, independent
of energy and independent of temperature.  It's been suspected
for 100+ years and pretty darn obvious for 50+ years that
that was the most fundamental, most general way of doing things.
If the students are all going into the HVAC trade, they don't
need to know that, but if any of them are going into physics,
chemistry, computers, communications, or even library science,
they ought to start there, with a solid P log P understanding
of entropy.

For additional details about what I think is important, see
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo-laws.htm