Modern Engineering Thermodynamics

3.13 Thermodynamic Property Software 89
WHO WAS EMMY NOETHER?
PART 5
To the Editor of The New York Times, May 5, 1935:
Within the past few days a distinguished mathematician, Professor Emmy Noether
(Figure 3.27), formerly connected with the University of Göttingen and for the past two
years at Bryn Mawr College, died in her fifty-third year. In the judgment of the most
competent living mathematicians, Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative
mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began. In
the realm of algebra, in which the most gifted mathematicians have been busy for centuries,
she discovered methods which have proved of enormous importance in the
development of the present-day younger generation of mathematicians. Pure mathematics
is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. One seeks the most general ideas of
operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible
circle of formal relationships. In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas
are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature.
Born in a Jewish family distinguished for the love of learning, Emmy Noether, who, in
spite of the efforts of the great Göttingen mathematician, Hilbert, never reached the academic
standing due her in her own country, none the less surrounded herself with a
group of students and investigators at Göttingen, who have already become distinguished
as teachers and investigators. Her unselfish, significant work over a period of
many years was rewarded by the new rulers of Germany with a dismissal, which cost
her the means of maintaining her simple life and the opportunity to carry on her mathematical
studies. Farsighted friends of science in this country were fortunately able to
make such arrangements at Bryn Mawr College and at Princeton that she found in
America up to the day of her death not only colleagues who esteemed her friendship
but grateful pupils whose enthusiasm made her last years the happiest and perhaps the
most fruitful of her entire career.
Albert Einstein
Princeton University, May 1, 1935
FIGURE 3.27
Emmy Noether.
3.13 THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTY SOFTWARE
Very few 21st century engineers use tables and charts. Numerous computer programs can provide the numerical
values of properties. Some of the more common are listed in Table 3.10.
Since these programs do not all use the same property equations, they do not give exactly the same numerical
results. However, any differences are insignificant. In the examples and problems in this textbook, a variety of
sources (tables and computer programs) have been used, so you may expect to see differences between the
thermodynamic property values used here and values you find from other sources.
Table 3.10 Thermodynamic Property Software
Program Name Source Comments
Mini-NIST Reference Fluid Thermodynamic and
Transport Properties (REFPROP) a
U.S. National Institute of Standards
and Technology
This free program contains properties for water, CO 2 ,N 2 ,
CH 4 , R134a, propane, and dodecane
EES (Engineering Equation Solver) F-Chart Software This is an excellent program for solving thermodynamics
problems
MathCAD (Functions are available for the
thermodynamic properties of various materials b )
Parametric Technology Corporation
(PTC)
MathCAD can perform calculations with automatic unit
conversion and checking.
CATT (Computer-Aided Thermodynamic Tables) John Wiley and Sons Incorporates color phase diagrams showing calculated points
Microsoft Excel (Spreadsheets available for Microsoft Corporation
Numerous Excel spreadsheets for thermodynamic properties
thermodynamic properties of various materials)
are available on the Internet
a This free program can be found at www.boulder.nist.gov/div838/theory/refprop/MINIREF/MINIREF.HTM.
b For example, see www.icee.usm.edu/ICEE/conferences/Conference%20Files/ASEE2006/P2006072MCC.pdf.