Truesdell C. Rational Thermodynamics

2nd corr. and enlarged ed. — New York—Berlin—Heidelberg—Tokyo: Springer-Verlag, 1984. — XVIII + 578 p. — ISBN: 0-387-90874-9, 3-540-90874-9.Prof. Truesdell's criticisms of classical thermodynamics in 1952, followed by detailed presentation of its mathematical structure in 1960, reopened the subject to fundamental research. Truesdell taught at Indiana University 1950-61, where Walter Noll was his student. From 1961 until his retirement in 1989, Truesdell was professor of rational mechanics at Johns Hopkins University. He and Noll contributed to foundational rational mechanics, whose aim is to construct a mathematical model for treating (continuous) mechanical phenomena. Truesdell was the founder and editor-in-chief of the journals Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis and Archive for the History of Exact Sciences, which were unusual in several ways. Following Truesdell's criticisms of awkward style in scientific writing, the journal accepted papers in English, French, German, and Latin. In addition to his original work in mechanics, Truesdell was a major historian of science and mathematics, editing or co-editing six volumes of the collected works of Leonhard Euler.In the words of Bernard Lavenda if there is something rational in Rational Thermodynamics it is well-hidden. Ironically, the 'rational' theory even failed in fields where the authors assumed expertise: "More damage was suffered by rational thermodynamics when it was found that the theory could not be applied to non-Newtonian fluids".Truesdell become also famous by his attacks on Lars Onsager (Nobel Prize 1968 for nonequilibrium thermodynamics) and related scientists.Müller's words regarding Truesdell, however, should be taken with a grain of salt. An article written by Müller ("On the frame dependence of stress and heat flux," Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 45, 241 (1972)) was strongly refuted by Truesdell "Correction of two errors in the kinetic theory of gases which have been used to cast unfounded doubt upon the principle of material frame-indifference," Meccanica 4, 196 (1976)), and it appears that Müller never forgot the incident.Contents.Annotated bibliography on thermodynamics and statisticall mechanics