Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that studies the most general properties of macroscopic systems and the ways energy is transferred and converted within them. It arose in the 19th century alongside the development of the steam engine and the need to make it more efficient.
Among the eminent scientists who made major contributions to thermodynamics:
- Sadi Carnot (1796-1832) — laid the foundations of thermodynamics by describing the ideal heat engine
- Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888) — formulated the second law of thermodynamics and introduced the concept of entropy
- James Joule (1818-1889) — established the relationship between heat and mechanical work
- Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) — one of the founders of statistical thermodynamics
- Josiah Gibbs (1839-1903) — the founder of chemical thermodynamics
Thermodynamics rests on several fundamental laws:
The first law of thermodynamics: Energy doesn’t appear from nothing and doesn’t vanish without a trace, it only converts from one form to another (the conservation of energy).
The second law of thermodynamics: Heat flows spontaneously from hotter bodies to cooler ones, not the reverse. The entropy of an isolated system cannot decrease.
The third law of thermodynamics: It is impossible to cool a system to absolute zero temperature in a finite number of steps.
In the context of the novel’s scene, when the main character recalls thermodynamics, he means the process of water evaporating off the surface of his body. Under the laws of physics, evaporating a liquid requires energy (the heat of vaporization), which is drawn from the surrounding environment, in this case the hero’s own body heat. Drops of water on skin at room temperature will genuinely evaporate on their own over time, since water molecules on the surface with enough kinetic energy overcome the forces of intermolecular attraction and turn into gas. This process cools the surface of the body, which the hero likely experiences as a pleasant sense of coolness on a hot day, or simply as an unavoidable physical process that requires no effort on his part.