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Thermodynamics

The four laws that govern energy: what heat and work are, why energy is conserved but not freely reusable, and what entropy counts.

01

Systems, states and equilibrium

Fix what a thermodynamic system is, what a state is, and why the work done between two states depends on the route taken between them.

02

Temperature and the Zeroth Law

Build temperature from scratch: why sensation cannot define it, how the Zeroth Law licenses a thermometer, and how gas thermometry fixes absolute zero at -273.15 °C.

03

Work, heat and the First Law

Why heat and work each depend on the path taken, why their sum does not, and how that single fact defines internal energy as a property of the state.

04

Enthalpy and heat capacity

Why the heat you measure in an open vessel is a state function, how to compute it from tabulated data, and why a negative ΔH does not mean a reaction goes.

05

Real substances

How matter that condenses and boils is described: the p-v-T surface, quality inside the saturation dome, property tables, and the equations of state that approximate them.

06

The Second Law and the Carnot limit

Why energy conservation cannot say which way a process runs, and how two statements of impossibility harden into the number 1-TC/TH.

07

Entropy

How Carnot's result exposes a hidden state function, how to compute its changes for real processes, and how to use it as a criterion for what can happen.

08

Irreversibility, the Third Law, and what entropy counts

Cost three irreversible processes in joules per kelvin, then find out what entropy is by counting microstates, and see the two answers agree.

Final Test