As the science of energy and its effects on the material world, thermodynamics holds one of the keys to meeting the challenges that our modern society faces. Data and models that describe the thermodynamic behavior of materials are essential to the development of sustainable technologies and products. Although its origins date to the scientific revolution itself, thermodynamics has been evolving rapidly in recent years. This is partially because it has benefited from the advances in numerical simulation, which helps complement experiments and theory. Thanks to these new developments, thermodynamics now spans a large range of domains: the life sciences, with their complex supramolecular arrangements; nano-materials, where short-range interactions are dominant; complex fluids, such as liquid crystals, electrolytes and ionic fluids; critical behavior and extraction processes; the behavior of materials in extreme conditions, and many more.
The Thermodynamics 2009 conference will bring together researchers from all over the world who are interested in these topics and in the three main tools currently used to explore them:
Experimental investigations have always been the foundation of our understanding of natural phenomena. The demand for greater accuracy, more severe and complex conditions, and faster data- gathering, together with a growing concern for safety, place additional constraints, on experimental researchers.
Statistical Mechanics and Equation of State modeling used to calculate the bulk properties of materials are today expected to attain both greater predictive power and higher accuracy with very little data. Such models are the basic building blocks of most of the simulators used in designing industrial processes. The meeting coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Carnahan-Starling equation of state, and a special session will be dedicated to to the topic of the historical perspective of statistical thermodynamics and perturbation theories.
Thanks to ever more powerful computers, molecular simulation has recently been added to the methods available to the researcher. Using a very fine description of the atomic interactions, it allows the thermodynamicist to visualize the effects of forces on molecular arrangements at the microscopic level. It also provides useful “pseudoexperimental” data in conditions where regular experimental investigations are too expensive or too complex. As an opportunity for open discussion among developers in these different fields, the conference will promote better mutual understanding and thereby facilitate their scientific endeavors.
The “Thermodynamics 2009” conference is the 21th meeting in a series of thermodynamics conferences founded in the 1960s by John Rowlinson and Max McGlashan. The conference will feature the 2009 Lennard-Jones Lecture and Prize, awarded by the Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. In addition, the Christopher Wormald Prize will be awarded to a research student, nominated by members of the community, who has undertaken outstanding quality research within the broad remit of the conference.