CLAUSIUS, R. (RUDOLF). - THE HEATH-DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE - ESTABLISHING THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS.

Ueber eine veränderte Form des zweiten Hauptgesatzes der mechanichen Wärmetheorie.

Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1854. Contemp. marbled boards. In: "Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Hrsg. von J.C. Poggendorff", Vierte Reihe Bd. 3, (= Poggendorff Bd. 93,). Entire volume offered. Two stamps to titlepage. X,632 pp. and 4 folded engraved plates. Clausius's paper: pp. 481-506. Internally clean and fine.

First printing of this milestone paper in thermodynamics, which together with his paper from 1850, established the second law of thermodynamics. In the offered paper Clausius introduces the symbol T for the universal function of temperature (a + 1) and he introduces the concept of "entropy" (the greek word for 'transformation'), but without using the word (Clausius introduced the word later in 1865), he calls this new theorem "the principle of the equivalence of transformations". This principle paints a dramatic picture of the end of the world, the so-called "heath-death of the universe".

"Entropy, on the other hand, of the complementary experience of water seeking its own level, of hot bodies cooling, of springs untensing, of magnetism wearing off and electrical charges leaking away, of a destiny such
That no life lives forever; - That dead men rise up never; that even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea: a world getting old and running down."(Gillespie in "The edge of Objectivity" p. 400-01.).

"Clausius discovered that if he took the ratio of the heat content of a system and its absolute temperature, this ration would always increase in any process taken place in a closed system. (A closed system is one that loses no energy to the outside world and gains no energy from it.) With perfect efficiency, which is never realized in the real world, of course, the ratio would remain constant, but i would never, under any circumstances, decrease."(Asimov). - Parkinson: Breakthroughs 1854 C.

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