"The accompanying CD-ROM provides instructive visualizations of the entropy-elastic spring and of phase transitions in fluids and shape memory alloys."--Preface.

Includes bibliographic references and index.

is a students textbook as well as a scientific monograph. The concepts of entropy and energy embody the effects of random walk in a body and of deterministic strife respectively, and are therefore often in competition. The book gives instructive examples from elementary thermodynamics and physico-chemistry and extrapolates the notion to non-standard thermodynamic subjects like shape memory, dissipation of the earth's atmosphere, and sociology. The works of the thermodynamic pioneers are presented, in particular Clausius, Caratheodory, Boltzmann, Gibbs, and Planck. The laws of thermodynamics and their limitations are discussed; also the pertinacious Gibbs paradox. The accompanying CD provides instructive visualizations of the entropy-elastic spring and of phase transitions in fluids and shape memory alloys. The reader has numerous possibilities to influence the programs and thus develop an understanding for the thermodynamic principles.