"Reciprocal Relations in Irreversible Processes II" in Physical Review.

Lars Onsager. **Nobel Prize Paper--Award in Chemistry, 1968**

Publication Date: 1931

About this Item

**Nobel Prize Paper--Award in Chemistry, 1968** Lars Onsager, "Reciprocal Relations in Irreversible Processes II" in Physical Review, 15 December 1931, volume 38 number 12, pp 2089-2304 with the Onsager on pp 2265-2279 of the full issue. [++] This issue is newly and expertly rebound in leather boards with a paper title label on the front cover. Very Fine copy, with the text very bright and fresh. There is a one-line owner's rubber stamp on page 2119. [++] "Professor Lars Onsager has been awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of the reciprocal relations, named after him, and basic to irreversible thermodynamics. Onsager's reciprocal relations can be described as a universal natural law, the scope and importance of which becomes clear only after being put in proper relation to complicated questions in border areas between physics and chemistry. Onsager presented his fundamental discovery at a Scandinavian scientific meeting in Copenhagen in 1929. It was published in its final form in 1931 in the well known journal Physical Review in two parts [part II offered here] with the title Reciprocal relations in irreversible processes. The elegant presentation meant that the size of the two papers was no more than 22 and 15 pages respectively. Judged from the number of pages this work is thus one of the smallest ever to be rewarded with a Nobel Prize. The great importance of irreversible thermodynamics becomes apparent if we realize that almost all common processes are irreversible and cannot by themselves go backwards. As examples can be mentioned conduction of heat from a hot to a cold body and mixing or diffusion." And: "Work done in the past may be selected for the award only on the supposition that its significance has until recently not been fully appreciated." --Nobel Prize Foundation website, presentation of the award for Nobel Prize for Physics, 1968. (Although Onsager's award comes late in the game 37 years later it is not the record for time between publication and award, that record belonging to Peter Higgs (48 years).

Seller Inventory # ABE-1768581938714

Bibliographic Details

• Title: "Reciprocal Relations in Irreversible Processes II" in Physical Review.
• Publication Date: 1931
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Fine
• Weight: 1 pound
• Seller catalogs:
  • Chemistry