The Constitutive Statements of Thermodynamics

This chapter reviews basic notions of thermodynamics. We recall the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and restate them in the language of vector fields, by introducing the central notion of thermodynamic field. The first and second laws dictate that this field is conservative and that there exist accordingly a thermodynamic potential, also known as the entropy. Massieu potentials and standard thermodynamic potentials are reviewed as well.