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History 181B: Modern Physics

Class 4 (1/29/03)
Thermodynamics
 
 

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Outline Work, force, and energy (continued)
    Simultaneous discovery
    Mathematical formulation
    Energy physics
    The significance of conservation (the first law)

The second law
    Carnot's engines
        What happens in an engine
        Caloric
        Clapeyron
    Puzzlement: reconciling Carnot and Joule
    Thomson, Clausius, and the second law
        The direction of heat flow
        Irreversibility
        Entropy
    Making sense of the second law

Names and terms
Primary Secondary
Naturphilosophie
Robert Mayer (1814-1878)
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
kinetic energy, potential energy
first law of thermodynamics
second law of thermodynamics
Sadi Carnot (1796-1832)
Émile Clapeyron (1799-1864)
work
Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888)
irreversibility
entropy (S)
Peter Guthrie Tait (1831-1901)
École Polytechnique
indicator diagram
James Watt (1736-1819)
dS = dQ/T
Presbyterianism
Assignment Rudolf Clausius, selection on "The Second Law of Thermodynamics" (1850), in A Source Book in Physics, ed. William Francis Magie (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 228-233.

    Describe the physical setup that Clausius was discussing. (Drawing a schematic picture of a steam engine may help.) What process is described by Fig. 43? (Note that the x-axis is pressure; the y-axis, volume. "Mariotte's law" is what French and Germans called the law that English scientists called "Boyle's law.")
    Did Clausius himself do any experiments with this setup?
    What conclusion did he draw from his discussion?

Copyright © Cathryn Carson 2003