Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics (Greek: thermos = heat and dynamis = power) is the physics of heat, work, enthalpy, and entropy changes in relation to the spontaneity of processes. In origins, thermodynamics is the study of engines. Prior to 1698, with the invention of the Savery Engine, horses were used to "power" pulleys, attached to buckets, which lifted water out of flooded salt mines in England. In the years to follow, more variations of steam engines were built; as the Newcomen Engine, and later the Watt Engine. In time, these early engines would eventually be utilized in place of horses. Thus, each engine began to be associated with a certain amount of "horse power" depending upon how many horses it had replaced! The main problem with these first engines was that they were slow and clumsy, converting less than 2% of the input fuel into useful work. In other words, large quantities of coal (or wood) had to be burned to yield only a small fraction of work output. Hence the need for a new science of engine dynamics was born.

Humor

Joke 1:

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?There?s as many variations of the second law of thermodynamics as there are thermodynamicists.?

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Joke 2:

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A common scientific humor expresses the three laws simply (and surprisingly accurately) as:

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• You can't win.
• You can't break even.
• You can't quit the game.

Or:

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• Zero: You must play the game
• First: You cannot win
• Second: You can't break even, except on a cold day
• Third: It never gets that cold

Sometimes also expressed as:

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• There's no such thing as a free lunch.
• There's no lunch that's worth what you paid for it.
• You must have lunch.