entropy Article Action and Entropy in Heat Engines: An Action Revision of the Carnot Cycle Ivan R. Kennedy 1,* and Migdat Hodzic 2 1 School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Sydney Institute of Agriculture, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 2 Faculty of Information Technologies (FIT), University of Mostar, 88000 Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Despite the remarkable success of Carnot’s heat engine cycle in founding the discipline of thermodynamics two centuries ago, false viewpoints of his use of the caloric theory in the cycle linger, limiting his legacy. An action revision of the Carnot cycle can correct this, showing that the heat flow powering external mechanical work is compensated internally with configurational changes in the thermodynamic or Gibbs potential of the working fluid, differing in each stage of the cycle quantified by Carnot as caloric. Action (@) is a property of state having the same physical dimensions as angular momentum (mrv = mr2w). However, this property is scalar rather than vectorial, including a dimensionless phase angle (@ = mr2wdj). We have recently confirmed with atmospheric gases that their entropy is a logarithmic function of the relative vibrational, rotational, and translational action ratios with Planck’s quantum of action h¯ . The Carnot principle shows that the maximum rate of work (puissance motrice) possible from the reversible cycle is controlled by the difference in temperature of the hot source and the cold sink: the colder the better. This temperature difference between the source and the sink also controls the isothermal variations of the Gibbs potential of the Citation: Kennedy, I.R.; Hodzic, M.