Monday 4 August 2014

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WHAT IS THERMODYNAMICS

Definition-

Thermodynamics  is a branch of physics concerned with heat and temperature and their relation to energy and work.
 It defines macroscopic variables, such as internal energy, entropy, and pressure, that partly describe a body of matter or radiation. It states that the behavior of those variables is subject to general constraints, that are common to all materials, not the peculiar properties of particular materials. These general constraints are expressed in the four laws of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics describes the bulk behavior of the body, not the microscopic behaviors of the very large numbers of its microscopic constituents, such as molecules. Its laws are explained by statistical mechanics, in terms of the microscopic constituents.
Thermodynamics applies to a wide variety of topics in science and engineering .

"Thermo-dynamics is the subject of the relation of heat to forces acting between contiguous parts of bodies, and the relation of heat to electrical agency."
Initially, thermodynamics, as applied to heat engines, was concerned with the thermal properties of their 'working materials' such as steam, in an effort to increase the efficiency and power output of engines.


Thermodynamics arose from the study of two distinct kinds of transfer of energy, as heat and as work, and the relation of those to the system's macroscopic variables of volume, pressure and temperature.Transfers of matter are also studied in thermodynamics.

Thermodynamic equilibrium 

Thermodynamic equilibrium   is one of the most important concepts for thermodynamics. The temperature of a thermodynamic system is well defined, and is perhaps the most characteristic quantity of thermodynamics. As the systems and processes of interest are taken further from thermodynamic equilibrium, their exact thermodynamical study becomes more difficult .

For thermodynamics and statistical thermodynamics to apply to a physical system, it is necessary that its internal atomic mechanisms fall into one of two classes:
  • those so rapid that, in the time frame of the process of interest, the atomic states rapidly bring system to its own state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium; and
  • those so slow that, in the time frame of the process of interest, they leave the system unchanged.
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