thermodynamics
/ˌθəːmə(ʊ)dʌɪˈnamɪks
/plural noun [treated as singular]
The branch of physical science that deals with the relations between heat and other forms of energy (such as mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy), and, by extension, of the relationships between all forms of energy.He spends much of his book providing us with a brief history of energy and discussions about energy issues such as thermodynamics and electromagnetism....
- He taught thermodynamics and statistical mechanics in a very elegant fashion.
- In particular, Hawking was gaining a renewed interest in a field called thermodynamics, developed by Lord Kelvin and others in the nineteenth century.
The first law of thermodynamics states the equivalence of heat and work and reaffirms the principle of conservation of energy. The second law states that heat does not of itself pass from a cooler to a hotter body. Another, equivalent, formulation of the second law is that the entropy of a closed system can only increase. The third law (also called Nernst’s heat theorem) states that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations.
Derivatives
thermodynamic
/ adjective ...- Two important thermodynamic quantities are temperature and entropy.
- So what is the microscopic physics that underlies the thermodynamic properties of black holes?
- The temperature exactly matches the thermodynamic predictions related to the surface area of the black hole.
thermodynamical
- Moss argues that Schrödinger's concept is intelligible only within a framework of thermodynamical and physical assumptions that may or may not characterize the conditions under which biological development takes place.
- Clearly two of these samples are not at the thermodynamical equilibrium.
- The thermodynamical studies of Thomson led him to propose an absolute scale of temperature in 1848.
thermodynamically
- In 1974 Stephen Hawking showed that black holes are, thermodynamically, black bodies.
- Another example of microstructural control is that aragonite with complex microstructures can dissolve more rapidly than thermodynamically less stable magnesian calcite.
- However, although they are thermodynamically favourable, these reactions probably did not occur in the solar nebula because the vapour phase hydration of rock in a near-vacuum is a very slow process.
thermodynamicist
- As we have already seen, the early thermodynamicists like Maxwell and Boltzmann implicitly gave credence to the atomic idea by treating gases as though they were mechanical systems of microscopic masses.
- The answer, as beautiful in outline as it is simple, is the brainchild of Montana thermodynamicist Eric D. Schneider: nature abhors a gradient.
- It turns out that you don't have to be a thermodynamicist to understand what you have to do.