Limitations of the thermodynamic model

But in a sense, the limitations of our subject are also a source of its strength. The concepts and procedures described here are so firmly established partly because they are independent of our understanding of why they work. The laws of thermodynamics are distillations from our experience, not explanations, and that goes for all the deductions from these laws, such as are described in this book. As a scientist dealing with problems in the real world, you need to know the subject described here. You need to know other things as weU, but this subject is so fundamental that virtually every scientist has it in some form in his tool kit. 

The fundamental problem addressed here is why things (specifically, chemical reactions) happen the way they do. Why does ice melt and water freeze Why does graphite turn into diamond, or vice versa Taking a cue from the study of simple mechanical systems, such as a ball rolling in a valley, we propose 

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