It is perhaps appropriate that, in a year marking the 100th anniversary of his landmark paper in thermodynamics, new developments should call fresh attention to the special beauty and profundity of the work of J. Willard Gibbs. Recent work has proved the possibility of constructing a new representation of equilibrium thermodynamics, one that is couched in a mathematical language—an intrinsically geometrical structure—quite different from that generally employed.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
H. B. Callen, Thermodynamics, John Wiley, New York (1960), page 48.
3.
The Collected Works of J. Willard Gibbs, Longmans, Green, New York (1928);
Dover, New York (1961); volume I, pages 1, 33.
4.
P. Dennery, A. Krzywicki, Mathematics for Physicists, Harper and Row, New York (1967), page 109.
5.
6.
J. W. Gibbs, Elementary Principles of Statistical Mechanics, Dover, New York (1960), preface.
7.
J. von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton U.P., Princeton, N.J. (1955).
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© 1976 American Institute of Physics.
1976
American Institute of Physics
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