This book is a brief and accessible popular science text intended for a broad audience and of particular interest also to science students and specialists. Using a minimum of mathematics, a number of qualitative and quantitative examples, and clear illustrations, the author explains the science of thermodynamics in its full historical context, focusing on the concepts of energy and its availability and transformation in thermodynamic processes. His ultimate aim is to gain a deep understand...

This concise and accessible book explains one of the most profound and inspiring discoveries ever made, namely, the fact that we ourselves—and all we see around us—are a natural product of the workings and wonders of the Universe, tied directly to distant events spread across space and time reaching back to the beginning, back to the Big Bang, and continuing through the birth and death of successive generations of stars. Modern science has shown that, in a very real and profound way, we ar...