gibbs
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Afterword to my book
The following is an excerpt from the final chapter of my book, Block by Block – The Historical and Theoretical Foundations of Thermodynamics, in which I took a step back to share a few insights and observations I unexpectedly gathered along the way. Happy the man, who, studying nature’s laws, Thro’ known effects can trace… Continue reading
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Physical chemistry – a new field in science
As a young man I tried to read thermodynamics, but I always came up against entropy as a brick wall that stopped any further progress. – James Swinburne (1904) [1] The second law of thermodynamics, which is known also as the law of the dissipation or degradation of energy, or the law of the increase… Continue reading
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Dissemination of Gibbs’s work (Path 2): Gibbs ➔ van der Waals ➔ Roozeboom ➔ community
In my previous two posts (here and here), I described the ways by which J. Willard Gibbs’s work on thermodynamics spread through the European science community. In this post I describe another way Gibbs’s work spread and it began with early admirer of Gibbs, Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837-1923), a Dutch theoretical physicist. It… Continue reading
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Dissemination of Gibbs’s work (Path 1): Gibbs ➔ Maxwell ➔ Pupin ➔ Helmholtz ➔ van’t Hoff ➔ community
Gibbs’ work spread throughout Europe along two separate paths. As already mentioned (here), the first started with Maxwell. It was his book that indirectly led Gibbs’s work to Helmholtz along an interesting path taken by Michael Pupin (1858-1935).[1] As a doctoral student in experimental physics at the University of Berlin under Helmholtz, Pupin was familiar… Continue reading
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How Gibbs’s work spread into the science community
It is a great pity that many cultivators of the science of thermodynamics since the time of Gibbs have not gone back to the fountainhead and closely correlated their results with this. – F. G. Donnan [1] The exceptional man is always in advance of his generation. Willard Gibbs was not alone in failing at… Continue reading
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Why Gibbs’s maximum work equation continues to fascinate me
Classical thermodynamics doesn’t prescribe how to design a process but does set boundaries on what the process can achieve. These boundaries quantify either the maximum work generated by or the minimum work required for the process. The calculations behind these boundaries are invaluable for assessing the economic feasibility and practical potential of ideas. Gibbs helped… Continue reading
Block by Block – The Historical and Theoretical Foundations of Thermodynamics. “Hanlon has written a masterpiece.” – Mike Pauken, Senior Engineer, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and author of Thermodynamics for Dummies
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About Me
Hi! I’m Bob Hanlon. After earning my Sc.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and enjoying a long career in both industry and academia, I’ve returned to school, my own self-guided school, seeking to better understand the world of thermodynamics. Please join me on my journey.
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