Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics

By Herbert B. Callen

Book Overview

The only text to cover both thermodynamic and statistical mechanics--allowing students to fully master thermodynamics at the macroscopic level. Presents essential ideas on critical phenomena developed over the last decade in simple, qualitative terms. This new edition maintains the simple structure of the first and puts new emphasis on pedagogical considerations. Thermostatistics is incorporated into the text without eclipsing macroscopic thermodynamics, and is integrated into the conceptual framework of physical theory.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471862568
• ISBN13: 9780471862567
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 2.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Insightful Postulational Approach to Thermodynamics

Why did I buy an older thermodynamics text, one first published in 1960? I trusted the advice of earlier reviewers. They say: 1) The best treatment of classical thermodynamics that I have seen. The chapters on phase transitions are excellent and the mechanical model used to illustrate critical phenomena is brilliant. 2) It is far better than most books on the subject. 3) I think this book has no competition as a text in thermodynamics. It is the ideal preparation for a book like Landau's Statistical Physics. 4) The overview of the fundamentals of thermodynamics is without rival. 5) I think this book is a great option if you feel disappointed with the standard treatment of thermodynamics. A few reviewers argued that Callen's text was less suitable for engineering students (too few heat-mechanical energy conversion problems) and chemical engineers (too few chemical mixture problems). My trust was not misplaced. Thermodynamics, an Introduction to the Physical Theories of Equilibrium Thermostatics and Irreversible Thermodynamics, is an exceptional text. I give it five stars. H. B. Callen offers a fascinating and insightful postulational approach to thermodynamics rather than the conventional inductive approach. He targets first year graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Based on my experience any reader reasonably proficient with thermodynamics should find Callen's approach quite stimulating. The text has three primary sections: General Principles of Classical Thermodynamics (200 pages), Representative Applications (65 pages), and Fluctuations and Irreversible Thermodynamics (50 pages). A 50-page appendix offers a useful review of pertinent mathematics and other relevant topics. Answers are not provided to the chapter problems. Interspersed throughout are brief chapters that review useful mathematical techniques. I appreciated the discussions of the Euler equation, the Legendre transformations, the extremum principle in the Legendre transformed representations, and the Maxwell relations (not the Maxwell EM equations). Callen provides useful tools like a thermodynamic mnemonic diagram (first introduced by Max Born) and associated procedures for reducing the formal manipulation of partial derivates to "a simple recipe". Callen's text has been widely used. I reviewed the 1960 first edition, eighteenth printing. A second edition published in 1984 is easier to find and is often used today as a supplementary text. Thanks again for the advice from previous reviewers.

Beautiful treatment of classical thermodynamics

leaving aside the stat mech part, the book is just perfect. The presentation of the subject is not the traditional one (like, for example, Fermi's thermodynamics); it begins with the fundamental equation (Entropy versus the rest of the extensive variables) and all the postulates, and then goes on thru all thermodynamics. I found this approach much clearer, and more fun. From the first moment you are aware that with just one state equation (an equation between the intensive variables), you do not know the system completely. The thermodynamic potentials are introduced using in an explicit way the idea of the Legendre transform (but the math involved is very simple) and so the essence of the therm. potentials can be readily understood. I think this book is a great option if you feel disappointed with the standard treatment of thermodynamics, which to me is quite boring and clumsy.

The best thermodynamics text around

This is a great book. It presents the subject along the lines championed by the great Gibbs and considerably clarifies and gives organization to the method. Don't be scared by the "axiomatic treatment" boasted: it is far from a dry axiomatic treatment like those to be found on books of logic. The "axioms" are rather synthetic expressions of the physical characterization of those situations where equilibrium thermodynamics applies. The book is very readable and user friendly. There is an important review of it by R. B. Griffiths, a great authority on these matters, that regrets some changes made with respect to the previous (first) edition. This was, mainly, the addition of a few chapters on statistical mechanics. I agree. It sort of contaminates the purity of the book's spirit. But, this is not serious. It was, after all, an addition. And the treatment of phase transitions was much updated and improved, in this edition. I think this book has no competition as a text in thermodynamics. It is the ideal preparation for a book like Landau's Statistical Physics, which, in its brief but spectacular synthesis of thermodynamics, also adopts Gibbs philosophy.

To really understand classical thermodynamics

A most intelligent book on the subject. The presentation of the axiomatics of classical thermodynamics and the derivation of the properties of system is the most rigorous I have ever read. Far away above most of the books on the subject. Excellent book for teachers also