This text provides a modern introduction to the main principles of thermal physics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The key concepts are presented and new ideas are illustrated with worked examples as well as description of the historical background to their discovery.
The theory of thermodynamics has been one of the bedrocks of 19th-century physics, and thermodynamic problems have inspired Planck's quantum hypothesis. One hundred years later, in an era where we design increasingly sophisticated nanotechnologies, researchers in quantum physics…
Thermodynamics has benefited from nearly 100 years of parallel development with quantum mechanics. As a result, thermal physics has been considerably enriched in concepts, technique and purpose, and now has a dominant role in the developments of physics, chemistry and biology. T…
