TABLE OF CONTENTS Remember, then, that science is the guide of action; that the truth it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accomplishment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.
William Kingdon Clifford, 1872
This chapter is the antithesis of Chapter 11. In Chapter 11, we studied how to calculate the equilibrium thermodynamic properties and chemical composition of a chemically reacting mixture. In the present chapter, we learn how to calculate the nonequilibrium thermodynamic properties and chemical composition of a chemically reacting mixture. Take a chunk of the air around you as you are reading this book, and imagine that (somehow) you instantaneously increase the temperature of this chunk of air to 1500 K. The vibrational energy of the air will increase, but it will not be instantaneous. Because molecules have their vibrational energy changed by collisions with other molecules, and these collisions take time (as discussed in Chapter 12), your chunk of air will experience a time rate of increase of vibrational energy. Finally, if you wait around long enough, the vibrational energy of your chunk of air will come up to its equilibrium value (the subject of Chapter 11). But in the meantime, what has been the time rate of increase of vibrational energy? The answer is the stuff of the present chapter.
Now, take your chunk...
