Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Thermodynamics today
Adrian Bejan
Duke University, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper I use the example set by Prof. Jan Szargut as point of reference for a brief look at the current
Received 27 April 2018 state of thermodynamicsdthe doctrine, its reach and importance. I start with my first encounter with
Received in revised form Prof. Jan Szargut in 1979, and I show how his work influenced mine. Next, I review the structure that
9 July 2018
underpins thermodynamics as a discipline: the laws and the self-standing phenomena that they un-
Accepted 14 July 2018
derpin, and graphic methods that convey these principles. Along the way, I draw attention to a recent
Available online 17 July 2018
trend that is caused by the inflation in scientific publishing due to the internet: the most common
mistakes and misconceptions in thermodynamics, and how they are being spread. In sum, this paper is a
Keywords:
Thermodynamics
call to action, to value, improve and defend the science of thermodynamics.
Laws © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Mechanics
Caloric
Constructal
Evolution
Design
Discipline

1. Professor Szargut
Science is like a civilized territory that improves, prospers and
expands because it makes life better for the people who belong to
it. It expands as long as it keeps producing useful things, which
attract people. The civilized welcome the newcomersdthe nobo-
diesdprovided that they obey the laws, the discipline. People join
because their lives become better that way.
To fight the barbarians who pillage on the perimeter is a
necessary and unpleasant effort, a nuisance, not the objective. As
the defeated barbarians are assimilated and civilized, the civilized
territory expands and, as a result, life, peace, movement and
freedom flourish. The civilized territory that does not fight the
pillagers is destined to disappear along with the good way of life
that it was sustaining.
Thermodynamics, like all the useful artifacts (e.g., science)
produced by the civilized, is no different.
I first met Professor Szargut at the workshop “Second Law
Analysis of Energy Devices and Processes”, held on 14e16 August
1979 at The George Washington University, in Washington, D.C.,
and sponsored by the U. S. department of Energy [1]. I was lucky to
be included, because I had just finished my first year as an assistant
E-mail address: abejan@duke.edu.
professor, and my record was relatively unknown. As it turned out,
this first workshop of my career was truly formative, for two
reasons:
First, it affirmed the importance of ‘correct’ thermodynamics in
the pursuit of solutions for the most pressing concerns about en-
ergy and the future. The workshop organizers invited as advisers,
speakers and participants some of the most authoritative figures in
thermodynamics in the U. S. from one or two generations before
mine, for example, Joseph Kestin, Edward Obert, Myron Tribus,
Richard Gaggioli, Paul Naghdi, and many more. To affirm the
importance of correct thermodynamics was a big deal then, on the
heels of the 1974 energy crisis, when most of the discussions and
solutions were reminiscent of caloric theory, under the guise of a
thermodynamics in which the speaker knows only the first law, and
speaks of “thermal energy” and “conservation”. As I show here, to
affirm the importance of correct thermodynamics is an even bigger
deal today.
Second, the organizers had the vision to invite speakers from
Europe. This was a rare and positive quality of the workshop,
especially on the background provided by the Cold War. Professor
Szargut presented a review [2] of the contemporary thermody-
namics pursued in Europe, on both sizes of the Iron Curtain. His
review also covered the history of thermodynamics, in particular,
the history of “second law analysis,” lost work and lost power,
which developed in the late 1800s as the Gouy-Stodola theorem,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2018.07.092
0360-5442/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219
and grew into a field of its own (availability, available work, exergy)
in the 20th century.
Professor Szargut's review opened our eyes to the reality that
colleagues in other countries treat and use thermodynamics with
care, and consider this doctrine alive, not dead. As I look back, his
lecture opened up my own eyes even though (because of my origin)
I was familiar with both sides of Europe, the languages and the
scientific literature. What I was doing before the 1979 workshop, as
a disciple of Keenan's M.I.T. school of thermodynamics, fused with
the field covered in Szargut [2] and the workshop [1,3], and became
my career and books on thermodynamics [4e6]. By the way, in my
books I covered not only the topics reviewed in Ref. [2], but also
several specific contributions of Professor Szargut and his students
[7e10].
Impact on a young career comes not only from the goodness of
the work of his professors' generation, but also from the nobility of
their character. On stage in Washington [2], Szargut impressed
everybody with modesty, clarity, conciseness, no nonsense, and
deep respect for the science that was created before him, regardless
of the nationalities of his predecessors. He was a true scientist, a
quiet role model. I heard him several times since then, at ECOS and
Gordon conferences, and every time he rose in my esteem. In the
following pages, I give a personal account of what I see as the
current status of our discipline of thermodynamics.
2. Distinct phenomena, first principles
What is thermodynamics? As its name indicates, “thermo-dy-
namics” is the modern science of heat and work and their useful-
ness, which comes from converting the work (power) into
movement (life) in flow architectures that evolve over time to
facilitate movement (Figs. 1 and 2). The part of nature that ther-
modynamics represents is this: nothing moves by itself unless it is
driven by power, which is then destroyed (dissipated) during
movement.
Power means work transfer rate, per unit time. The work
transfer can be of several kinds (mechanical, electrical, chemical,
magnetic). The name thermodynamics is about power (from
dynamis in Greek), and about the movement driven by power, as
spelled out by Sadi Carnot in “Reflections on the Motive Power of
Fire”.
Nothing evolves unless it flows and has the freedom to change
its architecture such that it provides greater and easier access to the
available space. Evolution means changes in design that occur in a
discernible direction in time, as if oriented toward an objective.
Evolution is in the eye of the observer. Evolution is the universal
phenomenon that unites the diverse classes of systems illustrated
in Fig. 2.
Thermodynamics grew out of engineering from the human urge
to have power, to enhance the effect of human effort. From the
Fig. 1. The evolution and spreading of thermodynamics during the past two centuries
(after a drawing made in 1982 [4], p. viii).
1209
beginning, this science was about improving a design, which means
changing the existing flow configuration of the thermodynamic
system. With thermodynamics, humanity made enormous leaps
while guided by the ‘objective’ tendency and all its related mani-
festations and concepts, from cheap power, efficiency and eco-
nomic sense to sustainability. Thermodynamics itself made steps
toward being better, broader and more useful, with new methods
and results in its new chapters: exergy analysis, thermoeconomics,
entropy generation minimization, and design [4e17].
Design means drawing, an image with message and purpose
[18]. Design requires visualization, evolutionary images of macro-
scopic systems, all flowing and morphing. Design thinking is ori-
ented against reductionism. It is holistic, macro, against the
infinitesimal. Flow architecture, evolution (design change) and the
future have always been and will continue to be the object of
thermodynamics.
Nature impresses and inspires us with changes, behavior, sur-
prises, some good and some bad, all from our point of view. All
these are our observations. Observations that are of the same kind
and occur in the billions represent one phenomenon. Observations
of a second kind represent a second phenomenon, and so on. Each
phenomenon is distinctdit is not to be confused or conflated with
the second and the third.
One phenomenon is a unique, self-standing and universal as a
trend (an urge) in nature. The phenomenon of irreversibility (one
way flow, from high to low) is not to be confused with ‘what goes
up, must come down’ (the conservation of energy in a body thrown
upward).
In science, each distinct phenomenon is accounted for by a
principle, also known as ‘law’ and ‘first principle’ in scientific
publications in English and other modern languages. Like science
Fig. 2. The engine and brake flow configuration of nature is represented by the flow of
useful energy into the earth (the large rectangle), the partial destruction of this flow in
the animate and inanimate engines (the blue disc), followed by the complete
destruction of the remaining useful energy stream in the interactions with the envi-
ronment (the green rectangle) (after a drawing made in 1976 [11], also in Ref. [4], p.
35). In time, all the flow systems exhibit the constructal-law tendency of generating
‘evolving designs’, and this time arrow means less dissipation in the engines and more
dissipation in the brakes.
1210 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219

Fig. 3. The evolution of the design space of power plants, the crest of which is marked by the rising first-law efficiencies of the most efficient models.

Fig. 4. The evolution of the design space of power plants, which is bordered from above by the second-law efficiencies of the new models that were adopted.
 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219
Fig. 5. Few large and many small: the evolution of the hierarchical population of the major airplane models during the 100-year history of commercial aviation [12].
itself, the concept of principle is primordial, and much older. In
Latin and its contemporary descendants, ‘principle’ means ‘first
principle’, because princeps means first and foremost, and prin-
cipium means a beginning, or origin.
Because the phenomenon is self-standing, its principle is self-
standing because it cannot be deduced from other principles.
Two phenomena, such as irreversibility and energy conservation
are summarized as two principles, the second law and the first law.
Another phenomenon, such as the evolution of freely morphing
flow configuration, is summarized as another principle, the con-
structal law.
In the creation of thermodynamics, these three phenomena are
evident as the origin of the principles that were identified along the
way (Figs. 1e5). Principles are necessary in order to compress the
volume of observations, and to make the story of science easier to
pass on to the next generations. Principles are dependable because
they summarize ‘the facts’. To rely on known principles in order to
predict how things and behavior should be in nature is to conduct
theory.
3. Misconceptions, as ‘new’ science
Sadly, students of science today are not taught any of the above.
They are taught other things, some wrong. They are being misled by
followers of the believers in the infinitesimal, believers who in their
time were themselves lured toward reductionism. All you have to
do is read what many anonymous scientists and editors post as
“thermodynamics” on wikipedia [19]. They agree with each other.
The same group censors (opposes and deletes) the attempts to
define, explain and transmit thermodynamics correctly.
Thermodynamics used to be brief, simple and unambiguous.
Today, confusion reigns in public discourse and scientific papers.
The words “thermodynamics” and “entropy” are pasted on new
1211
concepts without respect for their proper meaning. Recently, I
made an attempt to clarify this situation [20e22], so here are a few
excerpts:
We are often told that nature is complicated. Not if you see
nature from thermodynamics! Nature is the simplest thought
imaginable, because she (natura) consists of only two systems, your
system (the portion selected by you, the observer, for contempla-
tion) and the rest, the environment, which is also selected by you.
Nature, system and environment are in the eye of the observer.
Process means the change in the state of the thermodynamic
system. State is the collection of numerical values that represent
the system features, which are called properties.
If your chosen system generates power in order to move
through its environment, then the world that you contemplate
behaves as an engine & brake whole (Fig. 2), that is an engine that is
dissipative (irreversible) by its very nature. Through movement, the
brakes dissipate the power generated by the engines. Others may
contemplate other systems that generate power and movement
(waterfalls, animals, atmospheric and oceanic currents). For all the
thinkers together, the same world as yours is an endless collection
of intertwined (embedded) engine & brake flow systems.
We are often told that nature is nondeterministic. Not if you see
nature in the crystal ball called science! With science, we know in
advance how nature will be. Science is the human contrivance (the
add-on) that enables all of us to anticipate the future, to move more
easilydeconomically, safely, farther, longer in timedduring our
lifetime flow on the earth's surface (cf. Fig. 2). Science evolves
because wedthe human and machine speciesdevolve. With the
science of today we are better movers than yesterday. When I was a
student, predicting the weather two days ahead of time was guess
work. Today we know what the weather will be next week,
everywhere on the globe.
We are often told that disorder is increasing. No, because
1212 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219

observed is also the opposite, which is the ubiquitous phenomenon time.

of design birth and evolution in nature. Order is in the eye of the Many confuse the second law with the notion that in a box filled
observer. Where many see the trivial (diversity), few see the subtle with identical particles the assembly tends toward a larger number
(order, organization, principle). Many attribute ‘disorder’ to the of probable states, from which the claim that the second law is
second law. That is false. The second law says nothing about “dis- probabilistic. This is the core idea of statistical mechanics, which is
order”; review Clausius and Kelvin's statements: a self-standing and younger field, much narrower than thermo-
dynamics. Why narrower, because to assume a swarm of particles
Clausius: No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer
in a closed box is to throw away the “any system” power of ther-
of heat from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher
modynamics. The “any system” is the most general system, while
temperature.
the box with bouncing invisible particles is the extremely special,
Kelvin: Spontaneously, heat cannot flow from cold regions to the local, the extremely particular system with a configuration that
hot regions without external work being performed on the is chosen.
system. Even in an isolated system that proceeds toward death accord-
ing to the second law, the natural emergence of ‘order’ and evo-
lution is plain to see. Think of an isolated system initially filled
These famous statements should remind us that a new law does
nonuniformly with fluid (high pressure on one side of a partition,
not have to be stated in mathematical terms. The second law of
and low pressure on the other side), and you will recognize the
thermodynamics was stated in words, as a mental viewing, not in
birth of macroscopic organization, flow structure and evolution
mathematical code. The mathematical inequality came later, when
(turbulence, jets, eddies). Think of an isolated system containing
Clausius (not Boltzmann) invented the property called ‘entropy’.
initially two bodies, one with positive charges and the other with
Like any other law of physics, the second law of thermodynamics is
negative charges. On the way to its second-law death, the isolated
a concise statement of a distinct universal tendency (one phe-
system impresses us with lightning, which is a macroscopic phe-
nomenon) in nature. That tendency is irreversibility, the fact that
nomenon of flow organization and evolution. This is contrary to
everything by itself flows one way, from high to low.
claims that the second law accounts for evolution. The evolution
Measurable is the change in the entropy inventory of a special
phenomenon is accounted for by the constructal law, not by the
closed system selected for a particular measurement. Entropy
second law.
change from state 1 to state 2 is the name for the integral of dQ/T
The reductionism hidden in the isolated box with numerous
during a specially selected ‘reversible’ process from state 1 to state
identical particles has attracted many. For example, some physicists
2, where dQ is the infinitesimal flow of heat from the environment
(e.g. Refs. [19] and [25]) view the evolution of big living things
to the system during the process, and T is the temperature (kelvin)
(animals) on Earth as those particles in that box, each individual
of the system boundary, at the spot crossed by dQ. A reversible
capable of existing in more probable and less probable “micro-
heating process is so special (and not real) that at any time between
states”. What about the food, fuel, power, engine-like design, size,
state 1 and state 2 the system is isothermal and in equilibrium with
shape, diversity, locomotion, flow path and evolution of each of
its environment, which is the heat source.
these “particles”? This makes no sense. Clearly, those who know
What can also be measured is the entropy that is generated by
only the recent (statistical thermodynamics) believe that they can
an unambiguously defined system during an unambiguously
shoe-horn the old and the macro (all of nature, rivers, celestial
described process. For example, if the system functions as an
bodies, animals, engines) into their micro probabilistic narrative.
enginedreceiving net heat transfer and transferring net work to
That is wrong, and the confusion does not stop there.
the environmentdthen by calculating the theoretical work output
We are also told that all living forms conduct some sort of
in the reversible limit, and measuring the actual work output,
computation (sic) as a crucial component of their adaptive potential
which is always smaller than the theoretical work output, one can
[26]. A recent review paper [27] teaches the three faces of entropy
calculate the difference (the theoretical minus the actual) and
which do not include the original entropy of Clausius (that one is
divide it by the thermodynamic temperature of the environment:
reduced to a single line in the Introduction: “an extensive property
the result is the entropy generated during the process, e.g., cycle or
that links temperature with heat,” which is a statement that I do
steady-state operation. This calculation is the Gouy-Stodola theo-
not recognize).
rem [2,4,21], which is a theorem (not a law) because it is deduced
A science book [28] defines thermodynamics this way: “Ther-
from the first law and the second law, combined [21]. The entropy
modynamics is the mathematical physics of gases” (p. 200), which
generated by a refrigeration system can be measured similarly, as
is unrecognizable. The book also teaches that the second law of
the positive difference between the actual power requirement and
thermodynamics “states that, in a closed system, entropy (S) is al-
the theoretical (reversible limit) power requirement, divided by the
ways steady or increasing” (no, that happens in an adiabatic closed
thermodynamic temperature of the ambient.
system, not in any closed system). The quotation continues:
To measure entropy as it is being generated (produced) is not to
“Thermodynamic entropy is, roughly speaking, a measure of how
engage in ‘name dropping’, to impress an audience that, although
disordered a system is. A system that starts out in an ordered,
science loving and educated, is not acquainted with the word en-
uneven statedsay a hot region next to a cold regiondwill always
tropy. To measure entropy is deathly essential for our own evolu-
tend to even out, with heat flowing from the hot area to the cold
tionary design and survival as the “human & machine” species
area until evenly distributed.” This long quotation illustrates the
[20,23,24]. The contrivances that we study by invoking thermo-
shoe-horning of reality into the narrow (micro, disorder) paradigm.
dynamics, from power plants to water falls, windmills and
The writer (a math professor) misrepresents the macro process
domesticated animals, are our add-ons. They make each of us
from nonequilibrium (‘uneven’) to equilibrium (‘even’) into a
bigger, more complex and immensely more powerful than our
fictitious story about order and disorder. Why fictitious, because
naked bodies. Contrivances are human. They are the add-ons that
‘uneven’ does not mean ‘order’. The uneven initial state in this
enhance the effect (the impact) of human effort (from the Greek
process can be any system in any nonequilibrium state, such as a
word míchaní). Contrivance is the historic and most general
body of fluid in highly turbulent flow, a system that most people
meaning of the word ‘machine’ today. Contrivances make our life
would recognize as chaotic, disorganized, not ‘order’.
movement (Fig. 2) more efficient, farther on earth, and with longer
We are often told that the laws of thermodynamics hold only for
 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219
closed systems. This is not true. The laws of thermodynamics are
universally valid, for any system, closed or open, isolated or not,
steady or unsteady. The confusion is understandable because dur-
ing the birth of thermodynamics from the union of the ‘heat’ and
‘work’ lines (Fig. 1) the system that preoccupied the minds of the
pioneers was a closed system: a heat engine operating in cycles or
in steady state, while in communication with an environment that
has two distinct parts, one hot the other cold, the fire and the at-
mosphere. The laws were generalized for open systems during the
second half of the 1800s, chiefly because of the advances in loco-
motive and power plant evolution.
None of the advances made in the technologies that generate
and use power today would have been possible without the correct
application of the laws of thermodynamics to systems that are
modeled as open and time dependent, which is the most general
model, the “any system” object of thermodynamics.
We are often told that the laws of thermodynamics pertain to
equilibrium states. This is contradicted by the presence of the
inequality sign in any mathematical restatement of the second law,
which refers to the universal tendency of irreversibility in all the
flows, inside the system and between system and environment.
Flows happen because they are driven by temperature and pressure
differences, and because systems with differences are not in equi-
librium. They are not in the dead state. On the contrary, most of the
systems modeled after nature and analyzed in science are in live
states [20], with flows, configuration and freedom to change. The
arrow of time is painted visibly on live phenomena: the evolution of
flow organization throughout nature, animate and inanimate.
People like to talk about the principle of entropy increase. There
is no such principle, and whether the entropy (or some other
property) of your system increases depends on how you select your
system. This misconception is due to the (correct) notion that for a
closed system that cannot experience heat transfer with its envi-
ronment (called adiabatic, a very special kind of closed system) the
second law states that the system entropy inventory (a property)
must increase in time, while ‘any’ change occurs inside the system.
An even more special closed system that is adiabatic is an isolated
system (closed, no heat transfer and no work transfer).
Because of the second law statement for such special cases,
many believe that the second law accounts for organization, evo-
lution, life, death, and the arrow of time. This is false. The second
law says nothing about architecture, design (contrast, black lines on
white background [18]), evolution (design change) and the time
arrow of evolution (design change). Review the Clausius and Kelvin
statements of the second law. The second law is the law of physics
of the natural phenomenon of irreversibility, nothing more, and
nothing less.
We often hear that the organization that we see all around is
governed by a maximum or minimum principle. This contradicts
language and logic, not just thermodynamics. Minimizing entropy
generation cannot be the same as maximizing entropy generation,
and minimizing flow resistance cannot be the same as maximizing
flow resistance. Because of the word “entropy” in such claims, many
believe that the second law covers entropy generation minimiza-
tion and maximization, which is false. Reis [29,30] has shown that
these contradictory statements of extremum and optimality are
consequences of the constructal law. Entropy and entropy genera-
tion are eminently different concepts. Entropy is a function of state,
while entropy generation is not [21].
4. Models and drawings
From its inception, thermodynamics was communicated by
means of models and drawings, which continue to dominate the
textbooks today. A new subject comes with new terms and
1213
concepts, and because it is new it is more difficult to convey than
older subjects with established terminologies and mathematics.
‘Teach the simplest first’ is the wise way to convey any subject, not
just the newest and the most subtle.
The simplest is called ‘model’, which is defined as a simplified
facsimile of a physical object that was observed before the model
was conceived, drawn and built. We saw this in the memoir of Sadi
Carnot [31], where the real thing (the steam engine), which was
invading the continent from Britain, was reduced to one cylinder
filled with an ideal gas and fitted with one piston, and no mathe-
matics. This model and its cyclical functioning as an engine were
described mathematically and graphically (in diagrams) ten years


later by Emile Clapeyron [32], and by many other authors since.
Clapeyron is the artist who drew (three times!) the famous Carnot
cycle as a curvilinear parallelogram.
The chief attraction in this gallery of models and drawings is the
engine (Fig. 6), now called power plant (read again: power, not
work, and not ‘energy’ per unit time), which appears in an un-
ending sequence of configurations that promise higher efficiencies
than their precursors. Fig. 6 is the 1977 temperature-heat (T-Q)
diagram [33,34], which has been used ever since in many appli-
cations [4,5]. Refrigeration plants (Fig. 7) are the second attraction
in this exhibit, and so on. The book of thermodynamics is an
illustrated story of the evolution of design (drawings) even though
from the 1850s onward the two principles (the first law and the
second law) did not command in any way that design and evolution
should happen. What was missing as a principle then became the
constructal law today (Fig. 1).
The value of the simplest did not go away as the subject
matured. My view of this continuing stream of science-art creation
is colored by my penchant toward making drawings [33e39]. That
is why the samples that I exhibit in Figs. 6e14 are from my time and
peer reviewed publications. The captions of these figures paint the
big picture to which they belong: evolution in nature (Fig. 1).
The simplest drawings that have been adopted have three fea-
tures that make them realistic enough and useful as communica-
tors of scientific knowledge. They illustrate flows, irreversibility,
and opportunities (freedom) to change the drawing, to make it
better. These features are evident in all the samples exhibited here.
The flows are heat interactions, work interactions and streams of
fluid. The irreversibility is placed by the artist in a special organ,
which is distinct from the rest. In that organ heat flows across finite
temperature differences, fluid flows across finite pressure differ-
ences, and so on. That organ accounts for the thermodynamic
imperfectiondthe irreversibilitydof the whole object that is being
modeled. Features such as temperature and pressure levels, sizes of
diameters of pipes and heat transfer surfaces, and time intervals
(rhythms) of process execution are free to change and to be
discovered. Why, because the whole enterprise of modeling is
dedicated to discovering the features that, if changed, would make
the whole drawing better.
Mistakes in modeling happen, and this is normal, it's not a big
deal. In fact, mistakes are useful and educational after they are
identified and corrected. Science is self-correcting, after all [22].
Damaging is when the mistake is repeated intentionally by its
original authors and associates, in tendentious publications that
continue long after the mistake has been corrected. It seems that
the purpose of such publishing is to persuade the readers that more
papers prove the correctness of the original mistake. It is as if sci-
ence is about counting bodies. Science is not democracy, army or
communism. This kind of publishing is false science. The Tower of
Babel that ensues is a threat to the discipline, the next generation,
and the integrity of science [40e44]. Here are two examples:
First, the power plant model of Fig. 11 was proposed indepen-
dently by several authors, whose work is reviewed in Refs. 6, 21 and
1214 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219

Fig. 6. The 1977 temperature-heat (TeQ) graphic method for power generation [4,5,33,34].

Fig. 8. 1974 model for illustrating the irreversibility of heat transfer through the
insulation of a refrigeration machine [13]. The opportunity to extract work (power)
from the heat flow is located in the detail on the right side of the drawing. The
compartment in which entropy is being generated is separate, in the detail on the left.

Fig. 7. The 1988 exergy wheel diagram for a vapor-compression refrigeration cycle [5].

45. For example, in Ref. 4 (p. 146) it was used in the first consid-
eration of the problem of allocating a finite area among the two
heat exchangers, which is the main purpose of the model. Novikov
[46] had only the hot-end heat exchanger in the model. Chambadal
[47] had a combustion chamber in place of a postulated high
temperature source of heat. Curzon and Ahlborn [48] included both
heat exchangers but made the unrealistic assumption that the heat
input arriving from high temperature is free to vary, i.e., infinitely
plentiful, coming from a high temperature reservoir. This assump-
Fig. 9. 1976 model for illustrating the destruction (loss) of useful work (power) during
tion is not realistic for terrestrial power plants, because on earth heat transfer across a finite temperature difference [11], also in Ref. [4]. This mental
there is only one temperature reservoir (the atmosphere). Unlike viewing is the basis for the physics of flow and movement in nature (Fig. 2).
the ambient, ‘fire’ is expensive, not free, as was pointed out in
Refs. [6] [21] [45], and [49]. Criticism of this line of work was also
provided by Gyftopoulos [50,51] and Moran [52]. In spite of these unabated under new labels such as finite-time and endoreversible
corrections, publishing based on the model of Ref. [48] continues thermodynamics.
 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219
Fig. 10. 1976 model [4,11] of why the performance of a real engine should be inferior to
that of an engine imagined in the reversible limit. The imperfection of the real engine
(the dashed-line system) is isolated in the heal-leak detail on the left side. The
remainder of the model, on the right side, captures the operation in the reversible limit.
Fig. 11. 1982 model [4] of a real engine operating between a high-temperature system
(TH) and the ambient (TL). The engine system is viewed as a sandwich of three sub-
systems: two temperature gaps (TH e THC and TLC e TL), each crossed by heat flow, and
the remainder that is free of irreversibility.
Second, there are papers now that claim an “analogy” between
heating a solid body (heat transfer) and charging an electrical
capacitor (work transfer). This literarture is discussed most recently
in Refs. [34,36]. The analogy (named ‘entransy’ by its adepts) is false
science, as was proven by many independent authors [53e61].
Charging a capacitor is not analogous to heating a body. Charging a
capacitor is analogous to stretching a spring, because both pro-
cesses are driven by work input. Work must be done to stretch the
spring and to move charge between the plates of the capacitor. The
elongation of the spring, and the separation of charges between
plates (voltage, spacing) are macroscopic features of configuration,
design.
Heat transfer and work transfer are eminently different. They
are not analogous. This is why thermodynamics emerged as a new
science (Fig. 1). Had work transfer and heat transfer been analo-
gous, the caloric line would have been absorbed into the older line,
mechanics, not thermodynamics. Mayer and Joule discovered the
equivalence between the respective units of measurement of work
and heat, not the analogy between work and heat. Equivalence
means equal valence, strength, value, weight, etc., as in 1 kg of meat
versus 2.2 lbm of cheese, not the analogy of meat and cheese. Mayer
and Joules' predecessors knew the difference between working and
heating, and between macroscopically identifiable energy change
(kinetic, gravitational potential) and not identifiable (internal
1215
energy). As shown in Ref. [22], the heat-work analogy is a mistake
as egregious as claiming an invention of a perpetual motion
machine.
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than
ignorance.”
George Bernard Shaw
5. Writings fly, laws remain
Thermodynamics is not a mantra, and neither is the constructal
law. Fig. 1 makes very clear the evolutionary being of this science.
Indeed, in the twenty years since its arrival [62,63], the field of
“physics of life and evolution” that was defined by the constructal
law is growing in many directions, all good, including some that
propagate under new names that tend to obscure the oneness of
the phenomenon and the origin of the principle.
For example, antifragility [64] is defined as “the resilient resists
shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better”. From the
point of view of the constructal law, the system gets better because
it is a live flow system with freedom to morph in the evolutionary
direction traced by the law. Others use terms such as heterogeneity
and complexity, which would be appropriate for the still (dead)
image of a configuration, but miss the new physics, which is the
evolution phenomenon, the natural evolutionary tendency of flow
of configuration, the freely morphing of all configurations in a
discernible direction in time, the time arrow of nature [65]. Very
recent work with the same objective is described [66] as “dissipa-
tion-driven adaptation of abiogenesis” (for the translation of that,
view Fig. 2: it means the evolution of non bio flow systems that
dissipate power as they flow and morph with freedom).
In 2013, Pross and Pascal [67] proposed that “a general theory of
evolution may be expressed as follows: All stable (persistent)
replicating systems will tend to evolve over time towards systems
of greater DKS.” Their DKS is shorthand for “dynamic kinetic sta-
bility,” which in the terminology of thermodynamics means “flow
system.” Their stable DKS means steady flow, and “stable” sounds
scientific because there is a stability principle in thermodynamics
(based entirely on the first law and the second law and nothing
more). These word matches are crowned by the use of the words
“evolve” and “persistent,” which reveal that their authors' version
of evolution has a lot in common with the constructal law state-
ment of 1996, in which the verbs to evolve and to persist define life
as physics. Unlike the constructal law, which is about all physics,
Pross and Pascal limit themselves to biological systems.
In 2014, Georgiev et al. [68] proposed “to account for the phe-
nomenon of self-organization based on a principle of increased
physical action, which provides a means to define what exactly
organization is and how it is achieved and measured.” They define
“physical action” as the energy and time necessary for motion. Put
together, these words convey a message that matches the con-
structal law: the evolution of flow organization leads to easier
flowing (which when the driving force is fixed, means increased
flow, or movement). Georgiev et al. use the word “action,” which
sounds scientific because it reminds us of the 1700s and mathe-
matics, analytical mechanics and variational calculus. In 2000, I
drew attention to history and “action” in the last paragraphs of my
book “Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature” [23],
where I wrote:
“Performance improvement, or optimization, is an old idea and
an even older natural phenomenon. It has been with us
throughout the history of engineering. Its reach, however, is
1216 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219

Fig. 12. 1984 model that reveals the dissipative engine responsible for ‘free’ or ‘natural’ convection [5]. The turning fluid volume is the thermodynamic system. The system is an
engine coupled to a brake, which dissipates the power generated by the engine. The heat input comes from the left (the hot wall), and the same heat current is rejected 100% to the
cold fluid reservoir to the right. The rejected heat current is the sum of the heat current rejected by the engine and the heat current rejected by the brake that dissipates the power
generated by the engine. This model is a consequence of the 1976 drawing shown in Fig. 2.

and multiphase processes, the electromigration of metals, and

Fig. 13. 1988 model showing why the performance of a refrigeration system (the large
rectangle) with heat leak from ambient (T0) to the cold zone (TL) is inferior to that of
the same system in the reversible limit [5]. Throughout Figs. 8e12, note the graphic
identification of each locus of imperfection (irreversibility), and the separation of this
feature from the remainder of the system, which is modeled as perfect, i.e., irrevers-
ibility free.
geochemical patterns. Geophysicists and physiologists are
converging on the conclusion that the optimization of perfor-
mance has been the generating mechanism for geometric form
in all plants, animals, and inanimate flow structures.
If this phenomenon is so old and prevalent, then what is new?
New is the streamlining of its study into a single principle, which
is self-standing, a law. This was my objective in this book. Most of
this work could have been done one or two centuries ago, before
thermodynamics. The geometric minimization of resistances to
heat and fluid flow could have been accomplished based on
Fourier's heat transmission and the hydrodynamics of Bernoulli,
Poiseuille, and Darcy. It is a mystery that this was not done then,
because that period was still influenced by Leibnitz's, Mau-
pertuis', and Castigliano's intuition that, of all possible processes,
the only ones that actually occur are those that involve minimum
expenditure of “action”. Instead, modern physics embarked on a
course tailored to the principle of infinitesimal local effects.
Constructal theory is a jolt the other way, a means to rationalize
macroscopic features, objective, and behavior.”

much broader and more permanent: everything exhibits it. We
can be sure that the performance of power plantsdthe perfor-
mance of man, reallydwill continue to improve in time, in the
same way that, in time, the rainfall will generate a more effec-
tive (dendritic) flow structure. Examples of geometric maximi-
zation of performance are everywhere, in the optimal folding of
protein structures, the optimal configuration of reversed-field
pinch plasma, the geometrical control of catalysis, adsorption
There are many more examples, all from physics, which is the
establishment that is now starting to catch up with (and claim) the
physics of evolution, life and design that morphs with freedom.
Marletto [69] calls it “constructor theory”, which is very close to
constructal theory, in substance and title. Materials science is in the
news with “active matter” [70], which is another name for “live
system” (with flows, morphing while driven by power), which the
constructal law field recognized [71] as the opposite of the “dead
system” that was used for 100 years in thermodynamics.
Wissner-Gross and Freer [72] describe intelligent behavior as a
 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219 1217

Fig. 14. 1988 drawings showing the evolution of the configuration of steam-cycle power plants [5,38]. Compare the evolution of the architecture (top) with the evolution of the
cycle traced by the working fluid on the T-s diagram (bottom). The arrow of time points to the right, toward greater efficiency, because of the increasing gap between the average
high and low temperatures experienced by the working fluid. These drawings underpin (and illustrate most succinctly) what went on in the constitution of the power-plant
contrivances during their evolution in Figs. 3 and 4.

way to maximize the capture of possible “future” histories of a
particular system. This is the same as the constructal law: evolution
to greater access to future configurations of movement in space and
time, which is the definition of “future”. These examples illustrate
the trend to express the life-as-physics idea in a language that
sounds more mathematical and more scientific to the reader.
Jaffe and Febres [73] call “synergy” the creation of a whole that is
greater than the sum of its parts. Synergy, the word, is certainly not
that. The name for that phenomenon is construction with purpose
(as in ‘constructal’), or design, contrivance, organ, organization,
purpose, direction, machine, etc. The dictionary definition of ‘syn-
ergy’ is static, descriptive, not about change and the time arrow of
change. It is not about ‘creation’, which is dynamic, evolutionary,
morphing with direction, objective, and purpose, and which is
predictive if the constructal law is invoked. The key words in the
constructal law are two: ‘evolve’ (that's flow design change in a
discernible direction over time, toward easier flow access), and
‘constructal’, which comes from constru ere in Latin.
The examples discussed up to this point represent science and
how it is emerging, overlapping, and spreading. The next example
is about a different kind of science, overlap, and spreading:
Authors from P. R. China [74] used the constructal law of
Refs. [62,63], but instead of “constructal” they chose to name it
“bionic principle”. Why create the confusion? To benefit whom? For
a detailed comparison of Refs. [74] and [63] see Ref. [56]. More
recently, these authors honored their own name with the symbol G
for their own quantity in thermodynamics [75], with disregard for
the symbol G that represents Gibbs free energy, and also with
disregard for J. W. Gibbs who did not name the free energy (at
constant T and P) after himself. Indeed, as I asked in Refs. [34e39],
1218 A. Bejan / Energy 160 (2018) 1208e1219
for whose benefit is such confusion being generated and
propagated?
6. What is to be done
Improve and defend science. Teach thermodynamics and the
meaning of its concepts correctly. Why, because they are good,
useful and, until better ideas arrive, true.
Science evolves, as an add-on to the evolving human & machine
species. What works is kept as an add-on to the architecture that
was flowing before. What is false is swept aside, and forgotten. This
is the evolutionary ‘morphing’ design that science is.
The science that stays is the science that is useful to people. This
truth is worth contemplating, because most of our contemporaries
in science have difficulty with the concept of usefulness (objective,
purpose, function, design, evolution), even though they themselves
rely on it permanently, in thought and way of life.
Clausius wrote in 1851: “I believe, nevertheless, that we ought
not to suffer ourselves to be daunted by these difficulties; but that,
on the contrary, we must look steadfastly into this theory” [76]. This
quote is particularly timely today as we are facing a situation very
similar to the one faced by Clausius. To account for the phenome-
non of irreversibility, Clausius had to formulate a second new
principle, the second law of thermodynamics, in addition to the
first law for the conservation of energy. Today the new principle is
evolution (Fig. 1), and the new concept that this principle defines is
objective, purpose, life, evolution, or direction of evolutionary
changes (cf. Ref. [23], p. xix).
Science is self-correcting. This key truth of science needs to be
broadly communicated to all, not only to those who intentionally
propagate errors that have been corrected.
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