Duhem in a long and
remarkable series of operations has specially endeavoured to do, a
sort of general mechanics which will enable questions of statics to be
treated with accuracy, and all the conditions of equilibrium of the
system, including the calorific properties, to be determined. Thus,
ordinary statics teaches us that a liquid with its vapour on the top
forms a system in equilibrium, if we apply to the two fluids a
pressure depending on temperature alone. Thermodynamics will furnish
us, in addition, with the expression of the heat of vaporization and
of, the specific heats of the two saturated fluids.
This new study has given us also most valuable information on
compressible fluids and on the theory of elastic equilibrium. Added to
certain hypotheses on electric or magnetic phenomena, it gives a
coherent whole from which can be deduced the conditions of electric or
magnetic equilibrium; and it illuminates with a brilliant light the
calorific laws of electrolytic phenomena.
But the most indisputable triumph of this thermodynamic statics is the
discovery of the laws which regulate the changes of physical state or
of chemical constitution.
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