Page:Scientific Papers of Josiah Willard Gibbs.djvu/55

Rh diagrams in which $$x = \log v$$ and $$y= \log p$$, or in which $$x = \eta$$ and $$y = \log t$$; but the diagrams formed by these methods will evidently be radically different from one another. It is to be observed that each of these methods is what may be called a method of definite scale for work and heat; that is, the value of $$\gamma$$ in any part of the diagram is independent of the properties of the fluid considered. In the first method $$\gamma = \frac{1}{e^{x+y}},$$ in the second $$\gamma = \frac{1}{e^y}.$$ In this respect these methods have an advantage over many others. For example, if we should make $$x = \log v$$, $$y = \eta$$, the value of $$\gamma$$ in any part of the diagram would depend upon the properties of the fluid, and would probably not vary in any case, except that of a perfect gas, according to any simple law.

The conveniences of the entropy-temperature method will be found to belong in nearly the same degree to the method in which the co-ordinates are equal to the entropy and the logarithm of the temperature. No serious difficulty attaches to the estimation of heat and work in a diagram formed on the latter method on account of the variation of the scale on which they are represented, as this variation follows so simple a law. It may often be of use to remember that such a diagram may be reduced to an entropy-temperature diagram by a vertical compression or extension, such that the distances of the isothermals shall be made proportional to their differences of temperature. Thus if we wish to estime the work or heat of the circuit $$ABCD$$ (fig. 7), we may draw a number of equidistant ordinates (isentropics) as if to estimate the included area, and for each of the ordinates take the differences of temperature of the points where it cuts the circuit; these differences of temperature will be equal to the lengths of the segments made by the corresponding circuit in the entropy-temperature diagram upon a corresponding system of equidistant ordinates, and may be used to calculate the area of the circuit in the entropy-temperature diagram, i.e., to find the work or heat required. We may find the work of any path, the isometric of the final state, the line of no pressure (or any isopiestic; see note on page 9), and the isometric of the initial state. And we may find the heat of any path by applying the same process to a circuit formed by the path, the ordinates of the extreme points and the line of absolute cold. That this line is at an infinite distance occasions no difficulty. The lenghts of the ordinates in the entropy-temperature diagram which we desire are given by the temperature of points in the path determined (in either diagram) by equidistant ordinates.