G. Astarita

Thermodynamics: An Advanced Textbook for Chemical Engineers G. Astarita 1989 edition

If a Writer would know how to behave himself with relation to Posterity; let him consider in old Books, what he finds, that he is glad to know; and what Omissions he most laments. Jonathan Swift This book emerges from a long story of teaching. I taught chemical engineering thermodynamics for about ten years at the University of Naples in the 1960s, and I still remember the awkwardness that I felt about any textbook I chose to consider-all of them seemed to be vague at best, and the standard of logical rigor seemed immensely inferior to what I could find in books on such other of the students in my first class subjects as calculus and fluid mechanics. One (who is now Prof. F. Gioia of the University of Naples) once asked me a question which I have used here as Example 4. 2-more than 20 years have gone by, and I am still waiting for a more intelligent question from one of my students. At the time, that question compelled me to answer in a way I didn't like, namely "I'll think about it, and I hope I'll have the answer by the next time we meet. " I didn't have it that soon, though I did manage to have it before the end of the course.