This book is truly a gift to thosewho desire to understand in depth the making of that which exists. The thinking and aggressive searchfor understanding behind this workhas brought the laws of entropy toits most basic level. Knowing thatthe breakup of order does not designate disorder but instead order to a higher degree, seems tobe the rudimental step in discovery. The question seems to merely be what phase of order is one looking at and through what psychological belief patterns is one viewing the order? Martin Goldstein and Inge F. Goldstein takes one through the phases of development with simplicity and ease. Knowing that order is the framework by which visualization takes place and that disorder fragments vision until the loss ofvisual effect becomes total, surely gives one a different way by which to understand an environment and its connecting forces. Does change in its most elementary meaning then bring about disorder to an ordered system? Perhaps ordered systemscan expand connecting additional knowledge to itself or expand and break apart, all governed according to the forces feeding it. Martin and Inge have certainlybegun a cycle of reconsiderations and reevaluations of one's basic pattern of thinking.

In the U I had this rather old professor who said that we should not be discouraged by the difficulty in thermodynamics for many great men of science found it difficult too.If I had to go back and teach those course I would start by recommending this book.. first sound principles well grasped.. anything can be done after that

The book presents the three laws of thermodynamics: the first law (conservation of energy)in chapters 1-4, the second law (dispersal of energy) in chapters 5-9, and the third law (low temperature behavior) in chapter 14. Other chapters apply thermodynamics to light, chemistry, biology, geology, and cosmology. The authors present thermodynamics using both classical and statistical mechanical arguments. References are listed for further study of topics.Although the book is intended for a general audience, the book will be interesting even to a reader who already has some familiarity with thermodynamics because the book probably treats at least a few applications with which he is unfamiliar. The book also makes a number of refreshing admissions about the limits of thermodynamics; for example, thermodynamics can't be strictly applied to living organisms (p. 297), and in general relativity, energy need not be conserved (p. 370).The book requires a knowledge of simple algebra and logarithms; however, a tutorial on these subjects is presented in an appendix.

Very interesting and well written

Great explanation of entropy for the scientifically literate reader. Still, there were some things that I am still quite hazy about, like the concept of reversability. That is probably unavoidable unless one works out exercises, textbook style, and this is assuredly not a textbook. The explanation of the parallel between physical entropy and information entropy was mind-blowing. Numerous historical notes add flavor to the explanations. The later chapters cover a potpourri of grand topics like the age of the earth, why life can exist, quantum mechanics, and relativity. The idea was to address these topics from the standpoint of entropy. The authors tried to do that, although it's a bit of a stretch at times, but it doesn't matter - they cover these topics wonderfully, probably communicating as much about each of them as one chapter for each can possibly do, and very readably. This was one of my favorite reads. One caveat - I think this book would be a bit over the head of someone who hasn't had a math course since high school.