Course in Thermodynamics. Revised Printing. Volume I (v. 1)

by Joseph Kestin

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Textbook Binding
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070342814
• ISBN13: 9780070342811
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Weight: 2.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 6.7" x 1.6"

Customer Reviews

A must

I had no idea that this book could be ordered new, I imagine I saw it and ruled it out, not finding a photo of the cover and seeing the price. I imagine second hand copies are bought as much as new ones... In any case, I cannot recommend this book stronger than I do. The book is a course on macroscopic Thermodynamics in the best sense (statistical comes in a different book from the same author). It is not new concepts that must be sought, but the brilliant introduction to the classical corpus. Direct language, rigorous and developed but brilliantly simple examples and discussions solidly address the entire conceptual background of thermodynamics, providing many points of view and building consolidated, flawless notions in the reader. Apart from pedagogy, Kestin trains the reader to think properly and effectively in thermodynamic terms. An infinite subject, sometimes an obscure way of seeing nature, as many students end up thinking of thermodynamics, becomes clarifying and miraculously powerful for the mind of the future engineer. Many thermodynamics books fall into either labyrinthian mathematical exercises or problem-solving recipes. This book ought to be bought by the reader who wants to learn and apply thermodynamics, who needs to think thermodynamically. Or simply the reader who wants to grow in knowledge. Introductions, recipes, plays with internal energy, heat, entropy and work should be looked for elsewhere.

Kestin's A Course in Thermodynamics: A Great Surprise.

I am a professor at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellin. My teaching activities are related with thermodynamics and transport phenomena. I know the book by Kestin on thermodynamics (A course in Thermodynamics, revised printing, Volume 1, 1979, Washington: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation; I could not get the volumen 2); this is one I use preferably in my teaching of the subject, together with the book by K. Denbigh, the book by H. Callen, and, lately, the book by Kondepudi & Prigogine. In my opinion, one of the features of the book is the abundance of details used by the author to explain the different concepts. Those details may seem sometimes very overwhelming, but if one insists in going through them, it would pay later in the form of a better comprehension of the items. According to my own conception of teaching of a science like thermodynamics, Kestin's book is the most appropriate to present the different aspects of the subject. In which senses is this book different from others on the same subject? I will refer briefly to some of them. Chapter 2: Temperature and Temperature Scales. The treatment of this theme remembered me the book by Zemansky, a true classic. Here Kestin is excellent. Chapter 4: Work. This is the only book I know that makes a comparison between the concept of work in mechanics and the definition of work in thermodynamics. As a professor, I witness the real confusion in students when they go from physics courses to thermodynamics courses; they often think that there is a mistake somewhere. Chapter 6: Introduction to the Analysis of Continuous Systems and the First Law of Thermodynamics for Open Systems. This is another proof of Kestin's honesty and perfectionism: most of the books on thermodynamics, at undergraduate level, extend the application of the laws of thermodynamics to open systems without any reference to the required assumptions to do that. They forgive that properties like temperature, energy and entropy have sense only in systems at equilibrium, and open systmes are not. Kestin, as far as he is concerned, introduces the principle of local state, only an approximation that allowed the development of the thermodynamics of irreversible processes since the beginning of the 20th century. I think details like this must be known by students and people interested in the subject. In an interesting idea, the author introduces two chapters -7 and 8- to "provide the necessary descriptive background for a physical understanding of a variety of systems"; doing so, there is an interruption in the exposition of the zero (ch.2), first (ch.5), and second (ch.9) laws of thermodynamics, but it can be tolerated in view of the goal of the author. Other novelties include: there is a clear distiction between quasistatic reversible and quasistatic irreversible processes, something you do not find in some books; there is also a distinction between classical thermodynamics(the real s