Thermal Physics, Second Edition

by C.B.P. Finn

Concise yet thorough, accessible, authoritative, and affordable. These are the hallmarks of books in the remarkable Physics and its Applications series.

Thermodynamics is an essential part of any physical sciences education, but it is so full of pitfalls and subtleties, that many students fail to appreciate its elegance and power. In Thermal Physics, the author emphasizes understanding the basic ideas and shows how the important thermodynamics results can be simply obtained from the fundamental relations without getting lost in a maze of partial differentials.

In this second edition, Dr. Finn incorporated new sections on scales of temperature, availability, the degradation of energy, and lattice defects. The text contains ample illustrations and examples of applications of thermodynamics in physics, engineering, and chemistry.

Genres: Physics, Reference, Textbooks

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 8, 1993

Reviews

[Mahaione · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only physics book I've ever stomached and enjoyed.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really, Pippard is way better.

[Big Endian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to be taught thermodynamics by Colin Finn, a couple of years after this book was published. An easy to understand introduction to the subject, that doesn't get bogged down in the mathematics (that will come later, don't worry!).

[Hashlamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

she doesn't love me the way I love her

[Tue Le · Rating 4 out of 5]

We used this as our official textbook for thermal physics. I thought this book was good at explaining the physics and guiding the students in the jungle of partial derivatives that is thermodynamics. Contrary to what some might think, thermodynamics is a branch of physics in its own right and not merely a subsidiary of statistical mechanics.

[Tom Ritman-Meer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books this dull are hard to find.