Article ID: CBB001320791

Routes Towards an Abstract Thermodynamics in the Late Nineteenth Century (2013)

unapi

Two different traditions of research emerged from Rudolf Clausius's version of thermodynamics. While James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann pursued the integration of thermodynamics with the kinetic theory of gases, others relied on a macroscopic and more abstract approach that set aside specific mechanical models. This second approach blossomed in about two decades in different countries of Europe and in the United States. François Massieu, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Hermann Helmholtz, and then Pierre Duhem explored the connections between the contents of thermodynamics and the formal structures of analytical mechanics. Others like the young Max Planck and Arthur von Oettingen pursued a sort of formal symmetry between thermal and mechanical variables. In the British Isles, Joseph John Thomson developed a dynamical approach to physics and chemistry, making use of the tools of abstract mechanics without excluding microscopic motions. Some developments were logically interconnected, as it was for Massieu's, Gibbs's, Helmholtz's, and Duhem's, even though they occurred in a largely independent manner. Duhem put forward the most original and most systematic reinterpretation of thermodynamics, which involved a bold upgrading of analytical mechanics and a bold mathematical unification of physics and chemistry. A strong commitment to unification was one of the hallmarks of all these theoretical researches.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320791/

Similar Citations

Article van Strien, Marij; (2013)
The Nineteenth Century Conflict between Mechanism and Irreversibility (/isis/citation/CBB001213355/)

Article Campisi, Michele; (2005)
On the Mechanical Foundations of Thermodynamics: The Generalized Helmholtz Theorem (/isis/citation/CBB000771640/)

Book Alexander Pechenkin; (2018)
The History of Research on Chemical Periodic Processes (/isis/citation/CBB757079672/)

Article Giora Hon; Bernard R. Goldstein; (2021)
Maxwell's role in turning the concept of model into the methodology of modeling (/isis/citation/CBB799144703/)

Chapter Emilio Marco Pellegrino; Elena Ghibaudi; (2016)
Clausius’ disgregation and other disappeared thermodynamic quantities: conceptual relics or meaningful epistemic junctions? (/isis/citation/CBB669244059/)

Article Bordoni, Stefano; (2012)
Unearthing a Buried Memory: Duhem's Third Way to Thermodynamics. Part 2 (/isis/citation/CBB001250989/)

Chapter Pierre–Michel Vauthelin; (2017)
Duhem et la thermodynamique française de la fin du XIXe siècle (/isis/citation/CBB074154000/)

Article Rowlinson, J. S.; (2010)
James Joule, William Thomson and the Concept of a Perfect Gas (/isis/citation/CBB001022700/)

Book Yagi, Eri; Clausius, Rudolf Julius Emmanuel; (2002)
A historical approach to entropy: Collected papers of Eri Yagi and her coworkers at the occasion of her retirement (/isis/citation/CBB000301484/)

Chapter Vermeer, Leonieke; (2010)
Coping with Entropy: Utopian Reactions to the Second Law of the Thermodynamics (1860--1920) (/isis/citation/CBB001021561/)

Article José R. N. Chiappin; Cássio Costa Laranjeiras; (2017)
Duhem’s Critical Analysis of Mechanicism and his Defense of a Formal Conception of Theoretical Physics (/isis/citation/CBB982547450/)

Article D'Agostino, Salvo; (2004)
The Bild Conception of Physical Theory: Helmholtz, Hertz, and Schrödinger (/isis/citation/CBB000641781/)

Book Eric Johnson; (2018)
Anxiety and the Equation: Understanding Boltzmann's Entropy (/isis/citation/CBB190762202/)

Article Alisa Bokulich; (2015)
Maxwell, Helmholtz, and the Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Method of Physical Analogy (/isis/citation/CBB575472371/)

Chapter Patrizia Trovalusci; Giuseppe Ruta; Danilo Capecchi; (2009)
Il modello molecolare di Voigt (/isis/citation/CBB926157626/)

Article Achinstein, Peter; (2007)
Atom's Empirical Eve: Methodological Disputes and How to Evaluate Them (/isis/citation/CBB000830786/)

Authors & Contributors
Kenichi Natsume
Pellegrino, Emilio Marco
Vauthelin, Pierre–Michel
Cássio Costa Laranjeiras
Ghibaudi, Elena
Dais, Photis
Concepts
Physics
Thermodynamics
Mechanics
Chemistry
Methodology of science; scientific method
Entropy
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
Places
Europe
United States
Netherlands
Russia
Germany
France
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment