Thermodynamics - Scope of Thermodynamics

Scope of Thermodynamics

Originally thermodynamics concerned material and radiative phenomena that are experimentally reproducible. For example, a state of thermodynamic equilibrium is a steady state reached after a system has aged so that it no longer changes with the passage of time. But more than that, for thermodynamics, a system, defined by its being prepared in a certain way must, consequent on every particular occasion of preparation, upon aging, reach one and the same eventual state of thermodynamic equilibrium, entirely determined by the way of preparation. Such reproducibility is because the systems consist of so many molecules that the molecular variations between particular occasions of preparation have negligible or scarcely discernable effects on the macroscopic variables that are used in thermodynamic descriptions. This led to Boltzmann's discovery that entropy had a statistical or probabilistic nature. Probabilistic and statistical explanations arise from the experimental reproducibility of the phenomena.

Gradually, the laws of thermodynamics came to be used to explain phenomena that occur outside the experimental laboratory. For example, phenomena on the scale of the earth's atmosphere cannot be reproduced in a laboratory experiment. But processes in the atmosphere can be modeled by use of thermodynamic ideas, extended well beyond the scope of laboratory equilibrium thermodynamics. A parcel of air can, near enough for many studies, be considered as a closed thermodynamic system, one that is allowed to move over significant distances. The pressure exerted by the surrounding air on the lower face of a parcel of air may differ from that on its upper face. If this results in rising of the parcel of air, it can be considered to have gained potential energy as a result of work being done on it by the combined surrounding air below and above it. As it rises, such a parcel usually expands because the pressure is lower at the higher altitudes that it reaches. In that way, the rising parcel also does work on the surrounding atmosphere. For many studies, such a parcel can be considered nearly to neither gain nor lose energy by heat conduction to its surrounding atmosphere, and its rise is rapid enough to leave negligible time for it to gain or lose heat by radiation; consequently the rising of the parcel is near enough adiabatic. Thus the adiabatic gas law accounts for its internal state variables, provided that there is no precipitation into water droplets, no evaporation of water droplets, and no sublimation in the process. More precisely, the rising of the parcel is likely to occasion friction and turbulence, so that some potential and some kinetic energy of bulk converts into internal energy of air considered as effectively stationary. Friction and turbulence thus oppose the rising of the parcel.