Mathematical Foundations Of Thermodynamics

Mathematical Foundations of Thermodynamics details the core concepts of the mathematical principles employed in thermodynamics. The book discusses the topics in a way that physical meanings are assigned to the theoretical terms. The coverage of the text includes the mechanical systems and adiabatic processes; topological considerations; and equilibrium states and potentials. The book also covers Galilean thermodynamics; symmetry in thermodynamics; and special relativistic thermodynamics. The book will be of great interest to practitioners and researchers of disciplines that deal with thermodynamics, such as physics, engineering, and chemistry.

Research in the past thirty years on the foundations of thermodynamics has led not only to a better understanding of the early developments of the subject but also to formulations of the First and Second Laws that permit both a rigorous analysis of the consequences of these laws and a substantial broadening of the class of systems to which the laws can fruitfully be applied. Moreover, modem formulations of the laws of thermodynamics have now achieved logically parallel forms at a level accessible to under graduate students in science and engineering who have completed the standard calculus sequence and who wish to understand the role which mathematics can play in scientific inquiry. My goal in writing this book is to make some of the modem develop ments in thermodyamics available to readers with the background and orientation just mentioned and to present this material in the form of a text suitable for a one-semester junior-level course. Most of this presentation is taken from notes that I assembled while teaching such a course on two occasions. I found that, aside from a brief review of line integrals and exact differentials in two dimensions and a short discussion of infima and suprema of sets of real numbers, juniors (and even some mature sophomores) had sufficient mathematical background to handle the subject matter. Many of the students whom I taught had very limited experience with formal and rigorous mathematical exposition.

Phase space, ergodic problems, central limit theorem, dispersion and distribution of sum functions. Chapters include Geometry and Kinematics of the Phase Space; Ergodic Problem; Reduction to the Problem of the Theory of Probability; Application of the Central Limit Theorem; Ideal Monatomic Gas; The Foundation of Thermodynamics; and more.

This monograph considers systems of infinite number of particles, in particular the justification of the procedure of thermodynamic limit transition. The authors discuss the equilibrium and non-equilibrium states of infinite classical statistical systems. Those states are defined in terms of stationary and nonstationary solutions to the Bogolyubov equations for the sequences of correlation functions in the thermodynamic limit. This is the first detailed investigation of the thermodynamic limit for non-equilibrium systems and of the states of infinite systems in the cases of both canonical and grand canonical ensembles, for which the thermodynamic equivalence is proved. A comprehensive survey of results is also included; it concerns the properties of correlation functions for infinite systems and the corresponding equations. For this new edition, the authors have made changes to reflect the development of theory in the last ten years. They have also simplified certain sections, presenting them more systematically, and greatly increased the number of references. The book is aimed at theoretical physicists and mathematicians and will also be of use to students and postgraduate students in the field.

This book provides a modern pedagogical exposition of the mechanical approach to statistical mechanics initiated by Boltzmann with his early works (1866–1871). Despite the later contribution by Helmholtz, Boltzmann himself (1884–1887), Gibbs, P. Hertz, and Einstein, the mechanical approach remained almost unknown to the modern reader, in favour of the celebrated combinatorial approach, developed by Boltzmann himself during his probabilistic turn (1876–1884). The brief constitutes an ideal continuation of a graduate course of classical mechanics and requires knowledge of basic calculus in many dimensions (including differential forms), thermodynamics, and probability theory, besides Hamiltonian mechanics. The cornerstone of the whole presentation is the ergodic hypothesis. Special attention is devoted to Massieu potentials (the Legendre transforms of the entropy) which are most natural in statistical mechanics and also allow for a more direct treatment of the topic of ensemble equivalence. In this second edition, a chapter is added that addresses the long-debated question of how the second law of thermodynamics can be reconciled with mechanics, by using modern methods of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.