Formal and Practical Thermodynamics

Abstract

MAY I put in a word for the British way of looking at thermodynamics, now largely confined to engineers, as suggested by the critical remarks on the second edition of the treatise of Prof. Saha and Dr. Srivastava, contained in the brilliant and appreciative review in NATURE of April 4. Especially would I firmly support the Indian authors in passing over the preliminary abstractions of Prof. Carathéodory of Munich and his school. I remember when Prof. Planck, in a new edition of his book on thermodynamics, attracted attention by ultimately blessing them: which led to an invasion into Great Britain that I tried in my own way to counter by a critical commentary in my ” Mathematical and Physical Papers” (vol. 2, pp. 603–7 ; 1928).