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These forces and their associated displacements are called conjugate variables. [1] For example, consider the conjugate pair. The pressure acts as a generalized force: Pressure differences force a change in volume , and their product is the energy lost by the system due to work. Here, pressure is the driving force, volume is the associated ...
"High school physics textbooks" (PDF). Reports on high school physics. American Institute of Physics; Zitzewitz, Paul W. (2005). Physics: principles and problems. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0078458132
In this paper Lavoisier argued that the phlogiston theory was inconsistent with his experimental results, and proposed a 'subtle fluid' he named “igneous fluid” as the substance of heat. [5] Lavoisier argued that this “igneous fluid” is the cause of heat, and that its existence is necessary to explain thermal expansion and contraction.
Scots-Irish physicist Lord Kelvin was the first to formulate a concise definition of thermodynamics in 1854 [2] which stated, "Thermo-dynamics is the subject of the relation of heat to forces acting between contiguous parts of bodies, and the relation of heat to electrical agency."
[1] [2] [3] A more fundamental statement was later labelled as the zeroth law after the first three laws had been established. The zeroth law of thermodynamics defines thermal equilibrium and forms a basis for the definition of temperature: if two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium ...
David Jeffrey Griffiths (born December 5, 1942) is an American physicist and educator. He was on the faculty of Reed College from 1978 through 2009, becoming the Howard Vollum Professor of Science before his retirement. He wrote three highly regarded textbooks for undergraduate physics students.
Thermal physics, generally speaking, is the study of the statistical nature of physical systems from an energetic perspective. Starting with the basics of heat and temperature, thermal physics analyzes the first law of thermodynamics and second law of thermodynamics from the statistical perspective, in terms of the number of microstates corresponding to a given macrostate.
In mathematics and physics, the heat equation is a parabolic partial differential equation. The theory of the heat equation was first developed by Joseph Fourier in 1822 for the purpose of modeling how a quantity such as heat diffuses through a given region. Since then, the heat equation and its variants have been found to be fundamental in ...