Related papers: Reflections of Sadi Carnot
Carnot established in 1824 that the efficiency $\eta_{C}$ of reversible engines operating between a hot bath at absolute temperature $T_{hot}$ and a cold bath at temperature $T_{cold}$ is equal to $1-T_{cold}/T_{hot}$. Carnot particularly…
Carnot established in 1824 that the efficiency of cyclic engines operating between a hot bath at absolute temperature $T_{hot}$ and a bath at a lower temperature $T_{cold}$ cannot exceed $1-T_{cold}/T_{hot}$. We show that linear oscillators…
From an entropy-based formulation of the first law of thermodynamics in the quantum regime, we investigate the performance of Otto-like and Carnot-like engines for a single-qubit working medium. Within this framework, the first law includes…
In his ninth memoir Clausius summarizes the two principles of thermodynamics as follows: "The whole mechanical theory of heat rests on two fundamental theorems: that of equivalence of heat and work, and that of equivalence of…
This author is not a philosopher nor historian of science, but an engineering thermodynamicist. In that regard and in addition to various philosophical "why & how" treatises and existing historical analyses, the physical and logical "what…
We discussed the criterion for usefully comparing an irreversible cycle with a reversible one, and show that the lost work cannot be determined by the usual cycle diagrams, contrary to what has been found in the literature. To better…
The seminal work by Sadi Carnot in the early nineteenth century provided the blueprint of a reversible heat engine and the celebrated second law of thermodynamics eventually followed. Almost two centuries later, the quest to formulate a…
In this work, Sadi Carnot;s fundamental work is critically examined, and contrasted with modern thermodynamics. A mathematical theory of his work is given on the basis of the observation that in caloric theory dQ is a perfect differential.
The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of entropy in irreversible adiabatic processes that take one equilibrium state to another. The entropy…
Sadi Carnot's theorem regarding the maximum efficiency of heat engines is considered to be of fundamental importance in thermodynamics. This theorem famously states that the maximum efficiency depends only on the temperature of the heat…
Similarity between quantum mechanics and thermodynamics is discussed. It is found that if the Clausius equality is imposed on the Shannon entropy and the analogue of the heat quantity, then the value of the Shannon entropy comes to formally…
The efficiency of an heat engine is traditionally defined as the ratio of its average output work over its average input heat. Its highest possible value was discovered by Carnot in 1824 and is a cornerstone concept in thermodynamics. It…
This article is a short version of a longer article to appear in Physics Reports (cond-mat/9708200). The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of…
The historical development of the Carnot cycle necessitated the construction of isothermal and adiabatic pathways within the cycle that were also mechanically "reversible" which lead eventually to the Kelvin-Clausius development of the…
The Clausius-Clapeyron relation and its analogs in other first-order phase transitions, such as type-I superconductors, are derived using very elementary methods, without appealing to the more advanced concepts of entropy or Gibbs free…
[...] By the beginning of the 20th century, the principles of thermodynamics were summarized into the so-called four laws, which were, as it turns out, definitive negative answers to the doomed quests for perpetual motion machines. As a…
In this paper, the foundations of classical phenomenological thermodynamics are being thoroughly revisited. A new rigorous basis for thermodynamics is laid out in the main text and presented in full detail in the appendix. All relevant…
In this paper, heat and Carnot's working substance are defined respectively by the equations $E=3pV$ and $E=3/2pV$, relating the energy $E$, the pressure $p$ and the volume $V$ of these two corpuscular systems. The thermodynamic-kinetic…
In this paper we carefully reexamine the various framworks existing in the field of relativistic thermodynamics. We scrutinize in particular the different conceptual foundations of notions like the relativistic work, heat force, moving heat…
A first principles analysis of an open system thermodynamical Carnot cycle is provided, and the results are compared to those proposed by Gibbs for open systems. The Kelvin-Clausius statement concerning heat transfer for reversible cycles…