Does the Methodology of Teaching Thermodynamics to Engineers Need Changing for the 1990s?

Abstract

‘Equilibrium’ or ‘classical’ thermodynamics is a relatively stable subject and it is not surprising, after a lapse of only ten years since the last Institution of Mechanical Engineers Symposium (and six years since the Cambridge Workshop), that few fundamental changes of presentation are likely to be proposed. The author raises two questions regarding presentation of the two laws, one question about the current sign convention for work used principally by engineers in the United Kingdom and the United States and one question of balance between the use of tables and of computer databases.