Entropy And Its Physical Meaning, 2nd Edition

by J.S. Dugdale

This text gives students a clear and easily understood introduction to entropy - a central concept in thermodynamics, but one which is often regarded as the most difficult to grasp. Professor Dugdale first presents a classical and historical view of entropy, looking in detail at the scientists who developed the concept, and at how they arrived at their ideas. This is followed by a statistical treatment which provides a more physical portrait of entropy, relating it to disorder and showing how physical and chemical systems tend to states of order at low temperatures. Dugdale includes here a brief account of some of the more intriguing manifestations of order in properties such as superconductivity and superfluidity.Entropy and Its Physical Meaning also includes a number of exercises which can be used for both self- learning and class work. It is intended to provide a complete understanding of the concept of entropy, making it valuable reading for undergraduates in physics, physical sciences and engineering, and for students studying thermodynamics within other science courses such as meteorology, biology and medicine.

Genres: Physics, Mathematics, Nonfiction, Science

300 pages, Library Binding

First published August 28, 1996

Reviews

[William Schram · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book quite a bit for several reasons. The first reason is how it is organized. Instead of diving right into the laws of Thermodynamics, it goes and explains how these laws were arrived at and by whom. The second reason I liked this book was that it explained what it was doing rather than jumping through several steps and expecting me to be able to follow. The third reason is that the book has problems to work out with solutions in the back. Though there are several signs that confused me since I never had Statistical Mechanics, I still was able to work out some of it.

My only issue with the book was that it was quite short, but that did not detract from my enjoyment.