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Block by Block: The Historical and Theoretical Foundations of Thermodynamics
At the heart of many fields - physics, chemistry, engineering - lies thermodynamics. While this science plays a critical role in determining the boundary between what is and is not possible in the natural world, it occurs to many as an indecipherable black box, thus making the subject a challenge to learn. Two obstacles contribute to this situation, the first being the disconnect between the fundamental theories and the underlying physics and the second being the confusing concepts and terminologies involved with the theories. While one needn't confront either of these two obstacles to successfully use thermodynamics to solve real problems, overcoming both provides access to a greater intuitive sense of the problems and more confidence, more strength, and more creativity in solving them.
This book offers an original perspective on thermodynamic science and history based on the three approaches of a practicing engineer, academician, and historian. The book synthesises and gathers into one accessible volume a strategic range of foundational topics involving the atomic theory, energy, entropy, and the laws of thermodynamics.
This book offers an original perspective on thermodynamic science and history based on the three approaches of a practicing engineer, academician, and historian. The book synthesises and gathers into one accessible volume a strategic range of foundational topics involving the atomic theory, energy, entropy, and the laws of thermodynamics.
672 pages, Hardcover
Published May 16, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 31, 2022
If one is to write a history of thermodynamics one would basically have to cover the history of science in general considering just how fundamental the laws of thermodynamics are. Saying that I didn't expect the author to start with the Big Bang.
All joking aside this is an incredibly thorough overview of both history and theory of thermodynamics. Now the authors approach to history isn't strictly linear, but something far more ambitious. What he did was to cover specific concepts such as: Laws of Motion, Conservation of Mechanical Energy, Energy, Heat, Entropy and so on; and go through the history of all of these concepts in turn. This does cause a lot of repetition, but frankly it helps.
I can recommend this book to anyone who studied thermodynamics already and wants a greater understanding of the subject matter, but if you are just starting you will probably struggle a bit. This is one of those books that warrants a reread in the future.
All joking aside this is an incredibly thorough overview of both history and theory of thermodynamics. Now the authors approach to history isn't strictly linear, but something far more ambitious. What he did was to cover specific concepts such as: Laws of Motion, Conservation of Mechanical Energy, Energy, Heat, Entropy and so on; and go through the history of all of these concepts in turn. This does cause a lot of repetition, but frankly it helps.
I can recommend this book to anyone who studied thermodynamics already and wants a greater understanding of the subject matter, but if you are just starting you will probably struggle a bit. This is one of those books that warrants a reread in the future.
January 31, 2021
An applied (engineer's approach) to history. Reminding me a lot in structure to Paul Nahin's biography of Oliver Heaviside but with more breadth (covers many more people at much less individual depth). Much more worried about the internal thought process and personal notes of the notable characters of history. Hanlon shows their mistakes and the general scientific community's difficulties in coming to the conclusions we eventually came to showing the random walk of history, instead of a convenient linear walk, as many historians are want to do. I do not recommend it to someone without some amount of depth in these subjects. I have a laughably small background in physical and organic chemistry so I had to stop and reach out for other sources in those sections. But for someone who has taken an introductory thermo course or just a general scientific or engineering background, I think you'll love this. I gained so much context and understanding that I loved this text dearly.
July 4, 2020
This book looks like a textbook but sounds like fireworks for your curious mind. Yeap, it is all about FIRE and WORK! A very entertaining account on how humans tamed fire to produce work and by consequence compiled the laws governing all natural phenomena, that is thermodynamics. The motivation comes from Feynman saying that you should go beyond equations to really understand Physics and from Taleb observing that history is much more complex than in the history books. So Robert decided to combine history and science to thrill you with thermodynamics. The adventure starts at the Big Bang, of course, going through the intrepid thinkers struggling to build efficient engines (Huygens, Newcomen, Watt and Carnot), defining elusive concepts like temperature and energy (Joule), to ultimately understand conservation of energy (Clapeyron, Thomson, Clausius) and to write down the second law of thermodynamics (Gibbs, Maxwell, Boltzman). This book may ignite a fire within you so you will be deeply entertained with the workings of Nature.
September 2, 2025
Absolute banger.
Biggest complaint is that he should have not used Word to typeset equations like a noob
Biggest complaint is that he should have not used Word to typeset equations like a noob
April 20, 2022
Wow! What a ride!
Hanlon clearly dedicated a significant amount of time to writing this masterwork, and created something truly special! It was the perfect blend of historical narrative and analogical discovery, and it brought the otherwise abstract laws of thermodynamics to life.
History tends to get tedious, fast! You either end up with speculative anecdotes or a dumping ground of dates and facts. It takes a dedicated historian's eye to dig through all the available material to reverse-engineer the process of scientific discovery to build a cohesive narrative through historical fact. This does, admittedly, take some speculation, but Hanlon grounded any speculations in available fact and made it clear where the analogical leaps were. It was masterfully done.
The real question is, however, how does this work as a textbook?
In answering this question we must first ask at whom this textbook is aimed. He alluded in various places that it is aimed at the engineering student or practitioner that has already acquired a theoretical understanding of the laws of thermodynamics yet lacks a clear analogical grounding for the laws. That is not me. I am new to the field and used this textbook to acquire my knowledge about thermodynamics.
This matters, as every textbook must be grounded upon the expected scaffolding of its target reader. In other words, the writer must assume how much the reader already knows and build their analogies on from that point. As I am not the target reader, it would not be ethically valid for me to judge the book for my lack of foundational scaffolding.
This assumption comes out in various ways. For example, Hanlon refers to concepts before he discusses them, as he assumes you already know them; he will refer to things you would have learned in the engineering classroom; and he will mention ideas at a depth he assumes you would have already acquired. This does limit the generalisability of the textbook beyond the target reader, although not completely, as it is generally quite understandable. I would suggest it as an intermediate resource for the learner for that reason. Learn the laws in an introductory textbook and then read this to truly understand them.
Another goal of a textbook is to deliver the knowledge in a cohesive mental model. It is all too easy to make a textbook a categorical set of lists, which is tedious to read and an ineffective way to learn (although perhaps an effective reference for once you have learned it). Hanlon uses the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics in as a chronologically linear timeframe as possible. This is a particularly interesting mental framework as it delivers a narrative through which discovery is possible, which stimulates procedural learning circuits and develops a deeper, more intuitive understanding.
Finally, a textbook should consider its purpose. Is it a reference guide or is it aimed at educating the reader on the concepts themselves? Most textbooks aim for the latter and fail at it completely! They suffer from a problem of theory completeness, which involves such high-level analogies and mathematical proofs that it becomes all but incomprehensible for anyone that has not already learned it. I have read many textbooks that I could only acquire the information once I had learned to understand it. Yet, from where do I learn to understand it? It creates a circular problem!
Luckily, Hanlon does not suffer this problem. He perfectly blends a discovery-based narrative, analogical completeness (as opposed to mathematical proofs) and mathematical support. He explains the equations he presents with a zeal that engages you, rather than assuming they will be immediately self-evident to the reader (the curse of expertise is one that has doomed many a textbook!). He also, blessedly, introduced all the calculus in Leibnitz notation (rather than Newton's), while keeping most equations to their simplest, most condensed form.
That said, the first two sections on the big bang and the atom were strangely out of place. They felt as though they were bolted on after the fact to create a more general theory. It was a little overwhelming reading them as all that beautiful structure and mental framework delivered through the rest of the book just isn't there to the same degree. It also wasn't immediately clear why they were there until the later chapters explained their connection to thermodynamics. After re-reading them the second time around, it was much clearer, although still very condensed! For a later edition, it may be worth considering putting these at the end of the book and rephrasing them in a way that clearly demonstrates their relevance to the concepts already introduced. For now, the reader can re-read (or initially skip) them once they have finished the rest of the book.
Minor pet peeve: "in and of itself/himself/themselves" was used 37 times!! It did become somewhat of an annoying verbal tick that permeated Hanlon's otherwise excellent writing style.
Hanlon clearly dedicated a significant amount of time to writing this masterwork, and created something truly special! It was the perfect blend of historical narrative and analogical discovery, and it brought the otherwise abstract laws of thermodynamics to life.
History tends to get tedious, fast! You either end up with speculative anecdotes or a dumping ground of dates and facts. It takes a dedicated historian's eye to dig through all the available material to reverse-engineer the process of scientific discovery to build a cohesive narrative through historical fact. This does, admittedly, take some speculation, but Hanlon grounded any speculations in available fact and made it clear where the analogical leaps were. It was masterfully done.
The real question is, however, how does this work as a textbook?
In answering this question we must first ask at whom this textbook is aimed. He alluded in various places that it is aimed at the engineering student or practitioner that has already acquired a theoretical understanding of the laws of thermodynamics yet lacks a clear analogical grounding for the laws. That is not me. I am new to the field and used this textbook to acquire my knowledge about thermodynamics.
This matters, as every textbook must be grounded upon the expected scaffolding of its target reader. In other words, the writer must assume how much the reader already knows and build their analogies on from that point. As I am not the target reader, it would not be ethically valid for me to judge the book for my lack of foundational scaffolding.
This assumption comes out in various ways. For example, Hanlon refers to concepts before he discusses them, as he assumes you already know them; he will refer to things you would have learned in the engineering classroom; and he will mention ideas at a depth he assumes you would have already acquired. This does limit the generalisability of the textbook beyond the target reader, although not completely, as it is generally quite understandable. I would suggest it as an intermediate resource for the learner for that reason. Learn the laws in an introductory textbook and then read this to truly understand them.
Another goal of a textbook is to deliver the knowledge in a cohesive mental model. It is all too easy to make a textbook a categorical set of lists, which is tedious to read and an ineffective way to learn (although perhaps an effective reference for once you have learned it). Hanlon uses the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics in as a chronologically linear timeframe as possible. This is a particularly interesting mental framework as it delivers a narrative through which discovery is possible, which stimulates procedural learning circuits and develops a deeper, more intuitive understanding.
Finally, a textbook should consider its purpose. Is it a reference guide or is it aimed at educating the reader on the concepts themselves? Most textbooks aim for the latter and fail at it completely! They suffer from a problem of theory completeness, which involves such high-level analogies and mathematical proofs that it becomes all but incomprehensible for anyone that has not already learned it. I have read many textbooks that I could only acquire the information once I had learned to understand it. Yet, from where do I learn to understand it? It creates a circular problem!
Luckily, Hanlon does not suffer this problem. He perfectly blends a discovery-based narrative, analogical completeness (as opposed to mathematical proofs) and mathematical support. He explains the equations he presents with a zeal that engages you, rather than assuming they will be immediately self-evident to the reader (the curse of expertise is one that has doomed many a textbook!). He also, blessedly, introduced all the calculus in Leibnitz notation (rather than Newton's), while keeping most equations to their simplest, most condensed form.
That said, the first two sections on the big bang and the atom were strangely out of place. They felt as though they were bolted on after the fact to create a more general theory. It was a little overwhelming reading them as all that beautiful structure and mental framework delivered through the rest of the book just isn't there to the same degree. It also wasn't immediately clear why they were there until the later chapters explained their connection to thermodynamics. After re-reading them the second time around, it was much clearer, although still very condensed! For a later edition, it may be worth considering putting these at the end of the book and rephrasing them in a way that clearly demonstrates their relevance to the concepts already introduced. For now, the reader can re-read (or initially skip) them once they have finished the rest of the book.
Minor pet peeve: "in and of itself/himself/themselves" was used 37 times!! It did become somewhat of an annoying verbal tick that permeated Hanlon's otherwise excellent writing style.
November 24, 2020
An Engineer's history of Thermodynamics.
This books promises all manner of things I find interesting: physics, history, how language channels abstract thought in unproductive directions. And mostly it delivers, enough so to win the coveted, and rarely awarded, five stars.
Be aware that it will not be enjoyable (or even comprehensible) if you are not a STEM person knowledgeable about thermodynamics at a non-trivial level. Pretty much all the value lies in the historical explanations of how so many aspects of thermodynamics (the language used, the theorems emphasized, certain inexplicable emphases that appear in every book) came to achieve their canonical state.
However there's an interesting secondary explanation going on which I suspect was unintended, namely a revealing of how engineers and chemists think about this subject as compared to physicists and mathematicians. Particularly once we hit entropy, even after the full story was told, I was surprised at how concrete the explanations were; everything in terms of Boltzmann-level counting arguments, but nothing beyond that. No measure theory, no *defining* 1/T as a Lagrange multiplier (ie the cost of entropy per unit of energy under an energy constraint), no appreciation that entropy is a property not of a random variable, not of a distribution, but of a (particular type of) sigma-algebra. Hence the unfortunately confused discussion of entropy in the context of information theory (think, in particular, compression) because entropy, to the author, is *too* grounded as a particular property of the physical world of atoms; it hasn't graduated to being a property of sigma-algebras (and, by extension and loose language, things that can generate sigma-algebras, like distributions or random variables).
It's worth learning these inter-disciplinary mismatches because they make it a lot easier to read engineer or chemical literature, if you know where they are coming from, how their world view is not exactly the world view of the physicist or mathematician.
But if you read all the above and it made sense to you, then this is great stuff. You should know the big picture, all the names along the way. But there's a particular fascination to seeing not just the big picture but also so many of the detours and complications along the way.
This books promises all manner of things I find interesting: physics, history, how language channels abstract thought in unproductive directions. And mostly it delivers, enough so to win the coveted, and rarely awarded, five stars.
Be aware that it will not be enjoyable (or even comprehensible) if you are not a STEM person knowledgeable about thermodynamics at a non-trivial level. Pretty much all the value lies in the historical explanations of how so many aspects of thermodynamics (the language used, the theorems emphasized, certain inexplicable emphases that appear in every book) came to achieve their canonical state.
However there's an interesting secondary explanation going on which I suspect was unintended, namely a revealing of how engineers and chemists think about this subject as compared to physicists and mathematicians. Particularly once we hit entropy, even after the full story was told, I was surprised at how concrete the explanations were; everything in terms of Boltzmann-level counting arguments, but nothing beyond that. No measure theory, no *defining* 1/T as a Lagrange multiplier (ie the cost of entropy per unit of energy under an energy constraint), no appreciation that entropy is a property not of a random variable, not of a distribution, but of a (particular type of) sigma-algebra. Hence the unfortunately confused discussion of entropy in the context of information theory (think, in particular, compression) because entropy, to the author, is *too* grounded as a particular property of the physical world of atoms; it hasn't graduated to being a property of sigma-algebras (and, by extension and loose language, things that can generate sigma-algebras, like distributions or random variables).
It's worth learning these inter-disciplinary mismatches because they make it a lot easier to read engineer or chemical literature, if you know where they are coming from, how their world view is not exactly the world view of the physicist or mathematician.
But if you read all the above and it made sense to you, then this is great stuff. You should know the big picture, all the names along the way. But there's a particular fascination to seeing not just the big picture but also so many of the detours and complications along the way.
September 6, 2024
This book is almost everything I wanted it to be. The author is really considerate and doesn't use complicated terminology, in fact the book feels like you're having a conversation with a friend. That being said, it's not informal either. I'd recommend people who don't even have a STEM background to read this. However as far as the science/mathematics goes, I only understood in this book the stuff that I'd already read in school. For the stuff that was new to me (e.g. the entire section on Gibbs), it went over my head. So I think, to understand it fully, one needs to read a physical chemistry/thermodynamics textbook first. The author becomes very terse when it comes to the actual equations, although I'm not complaining because I just wanted to gain a historical perspective, but I'm very glad he included the science as well.
The book has a few glaring typos, and some sections feel like filler. Nevertheless, I decided to give it five stars because 4 stars seemed too little and the book just had a really 'feel good' vibe to it.
The book has a few glaring typos, and some sections feel like filler. Nevertheless, I decided to give it five stars because 4 stars seemed too little and the book just had a really 'feel good' vibe to it.
March 20, 2026
This book went deep into both the history and the math leading to breakthroughs in thermodynamics, and from there into the early stages of quantum mechanics. Taking the trip from discovery to discovery was not only interesting, but helped build up a strong intuition for what is happening. I definitely needed to stop and look things up to understand better - thankfully it's all long settled material found all over the internet at all levels of entry point.
July 25, 2022
It took a few months but I finally made my way through this substantial survey of the science and history of thermodynamics. It's highly technical but also successfully brings the reader to viscerally comprehend the subject matter. I heartily recommend it to my fellow engineers, and maybe to anyone else ambitious and curious about the science.
May 11, 2022
Starts out with fantastic explanations, I'd happily give it 5 stars if it continued like this but the further in you go the more it concentrates on biographies, diaries and personal disputes that no one cares about except the author.
May 8, 2021
Good information on Thermodynamics, although the front part is largely a brief overview of other physics. Goes deep later on in Gibbs etc.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews