Tragicomical history of thermodynamics

Truesdell C.167-175-247-3

Thermodynamics is the kingdom also of running current history as well as polemics, not to mention verbosity. In no other discipline have the same equations been published over and over again so many times by different authors in different ill-defined notations and therefore claimed as his own by each; in no other has a single author seen fit to publish essentially the same ideas over and over again within a period of twenty years; and nowhere else is the ratio of talk and excuse to reason and result so high. In no other part of mathematical physics have so many claims and counterclaims of priority been issued by the leading creators of the subject, and in no other have these same men turned aside from research to write historical papers or long his-torifal notes within a decade or two of their first attacks on the theory itself. Small wonder then that histories and historical papers by secondary authors and historians abound, yet the field seems ever fresh to the newcomer.