An understanding of the development history of science is very important. In the field of thermodynamics the tendency of classicalism to refuse modernization is rarely found in other disciplines of science. No wonder that it was said at the end of the 20th century that1
Thermodynamics is a core of science. Most books present thermodynamics very much the way it was presented in the 19th century. In the development history of thermodynamics there are a lot of vivid examples and lessons which show this. The research objects have changed from the simplest reversible heat engines in Cartnot’s time to complex systems including living systems in the present time, but the development history step by step in detail is still very useful for finding and removing out-of-date concepts and assumptions, which were merely suitable for simple systems.