Thermodynamics is the much abused slave of many masters - physicists who love the totally impractical Carnot process, - mechanical engineers who design power stations and refrigerators, - chemists who are successfully synthesizing ammonia and are puzzled by photosynthesis, - meteorologists who calculate cloud bases and predict föhn, boraccia and scirocco, - physico-chemists who vulcanize rubber and build fuel cells, - chemical engineers who rectify natural gas and distil f- mented potato juice, - metallurgists who improve steels and harden surfaces, - - trition counselors who recommend a proper intake of calories, - mechanics who adjust heat exchangers, - architects who construe - and often misconstrue - ch- neys, - biologists who marvel at the height of trees, - air conditioning engineers who design saunas and the ventilation of air plane cabins, - rocket engineers who create supersonic flows, et cetera. Not all of these professional groups need the full depth and breadth of ther- dynamics. For some it is enough to consider a well-stirred tank, for others a s- tionary nozzle flow is essential, and yet others are well-served with the partial d- ferential equation of heat conduction. It is therefore natural that thermodynamics is prone to mutilation; different group-specific meta-thermodynamics' have emerged which serve the interest of the groups under most circumstances and leave out aspects that are not often needed in their fields.
