Excerpts from Preface:

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This book employs a modern point of view to present a new framework for the study of thermodynamics. Its content should be accessible to college freshmen or sophomores in science and engineering programs, and it provides anyone with a comparable background the material necessary to teach themselves the fundamentals of thermodynamics and their basic applications to physics and chemistry. In addition, owing to its novel point of view, we believe that this book allows readers who already have a working knowledge of thermodynamics to gain a new appreciation for the depth and beauty of its theoretical structure. It is suited to serve as a textbook for a single-semester college course. We recommend structuring such a course in accordance with the organization of topics presented in the first half of the book. (A recommended outline for such use is presented at the end of Section 1.3.) This book covers a great deal of material, but that presented in the last few chapters is not necessary for a general knowledge of the field. From the first six chapters, the reader can gain a deep understanding of the fundamental nature of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. Adding Chapter 7, the reader can also become acquainted with some basic applications of this theoretical framework.

Our goal in writing this book was to present the theoretical system of thermodynamics in a clear and logical form that brings its concepts to life. In addition, we have aimed to present content and arguments that form a complete understanding, with the stance that the reader (or the instructor) should not be left feeling that something has been glossed over or left vague. This emphasis on clarity and logic begins with the manner in which we construct the overall theory and present the relations between the individual arguments in this construction to the whole, and it extends to the manner in which we form and lay out these arguments and the computations they contain. In addition, we attempt to elucidate the relation between the theory discussed here and the larger frameworks of physics and natural science in general, with the intention of providing the reader with a clear understanding of the position that thermodynamics occupies within the general scientific framework as well as the peculiar point of view that it offers.

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In this book we present the theory of thermodynamics through a novel reconstruction. While the content of this theory itself is, of course, that of the conventional theory, the point of view that we take in its construction differs from that taken in conventional textbooks. The fundamental manner of thinking employed in this book is the following:

We consider thermodynamics from an operational point of view in which the most important concept is work. After individually studying isothermal operations (and the second law) and adiabatic operations (and the first law), we seek a framework within which both can be understood. In this way, the overall structure of thermodynamics naturally takes form.

The above overview may be difficult to understand at this point, but it will become clear in the following chapters.

Our purpose in presenting an alternative to the conventional instructional method, which has existed for more than one hundred years, is not simply to display our eccentricity. Rather, like many physicists, we found the conventional approach to thermodynamics difficult to understand, and, while studying a number of modern works, we searched for a clearer approach. The formulation presented here is the result of that search.