Basic thermodynamics

It is well known that thermodynamics presents students with particular difficulties. They find the concepts evasive and the methods obscure. These problems arise because it is traditional to emphasize at the outset how general thermodynamics is. Unfortunately, when ideas are introduced in an unspecified context they fail to make contact with the student's experience - such ideas do not become part of the physical intuition of the student as they should. In this introductory text the subject is developed in stages beginning with the basic notions which are illustrated using an ideal gas as a…