Warmth Disperses and Time Passes: The History of Heat by Hans Christian von Baeyer Search Amazon for other books by or about Hans Christian von Baeyer. Rating: Reviewed by: David Smillie

Full Title:Maxwell's Demon, Warmth Disperses and Time Passes: The History of Heat

A few months ago, I was reading a book called Maxwell's Demon: Why Warmth Disperses and Time Passes by Hans Christian von Baeyer. While I was reading the book, a friend with no interest in science passed by me, looked at the title and asked, "Hey, what's that book about?"

"Thermodynamics." I replied.

"Oh." You could see his face fall.

And that, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with this book. The name may have changed ... the demon of the former title has been banished to some nether-realm, leaving only the subtitle.

And that's a problem. Von Baeyer used the image of the demon pretty liberally as a unifying theme for the book. Without that title character, it's a bit harder to understand why the demon gets such play.

Be that as it may, the problems with Warmth Disperses and Time Passes are the same as those affecting Maxwell's Demon. It may try to be cute. It may use the appealing image of tiny demons wreaking havoc as a running theme. But ultimately, it's a book about thermodynamics. And despite the author's undoubted skill, it's pretty rough going at times.

There's no reason such a small book (a mere hundred and seventy four pages, not counting the end notes) should be such a slog of a read. It just never grabbed me, even though I really wanted to like it. The idea of using Maxwell's demons, (parts of a thought experiment dreamed up last century by James Clerk Maxwell) as a unifying element is an interesting conceit, but it never really works. All attempts to portray the demons, merrily scampering through the physics of the last few hundred years, quickly fall flat.

I'm not saying there isn't a good explanation of thermodynamics here. But if you're not already familiar with the subject, or at least interested in it, I don't think this is the book that's going to cause you to quit your job and devote your life to calorimetry. Or even bomb calorimetry (which isn't nearly as exciting as it sounds ...).

The style is certainly agreeable. The book begins: "Warmth, the carrier of comfort and security for human beings, is the primary object of the study of thermodynamics. The vital clue to its true nature was discovered unexpectedly in 1797, when the American Tory spy, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, stumbled on it while manufacturing cannons in Munich."

An engaging start, promising a nice blend of historical figures and physics (something which can be extremely effective, see Heisenberg Probably Slept Here). But there's no spark, no divine fire. It is, in a word, dull.

And at the risk of annoying any physical chemists out there, I blame the subject matter. Thermodynamics is not inherently sexy. Heat flow may be important, but it's pretty dry. And ultimately that's what dooms this book. It's not technical enough to be a good resource manual, and not chatty enough to engage anyone who's looking for the next Longitude.