Biological Thermodynamics

This is the Best, Most readable, and Entertaining book on Thermodynamics I have read. Dr Haynie has clearly described thermodynamics (which can get dry very quickly) with real world examples and a historical prespective in covering Thermodynamics clearly and elegantly in a very readable text for scientists from various disciplines.

For neophytes to this field, like me, a more descriptive title for this book would be some jaw-breaker like "Thermal Physical Biochemistry". I'd picked the book up because I was interested in, e.g., the thermodynamic aspects of plant and animal physiology and morphology -- such as the shapes of leaves, snouts, beehives, etc. You won't find any of those subjects here, nor even any discussion of the thermodynamic differences between warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals other than a reference in a problem set. The book's scope is not really biology, but rather biochemistry. (According to an email I received from the author after posting an earlier version of this review, there is a professional society for "biological thermodynamics" that indeed focuses primarily on biochemistry. But if, like me, you're not a pro, you might be surprised to learn that the title phrase has such a narrow meaning. The author also tells me that there isn't enough material for a book about leaves, snouts, etc. at the undergraduate level; nonetheless, if that's what you're interested in, you should know it's not here.) On the plus side, the book does have some down to earth explanations of concepts like entropy and free energy. It's also good at explaining why, for example, sometimes you want to use enthalpy and other times free energy. Most thermo textbooks just rattle off various combinations of variables, state functions and partial derviative relationships, without giving you any practical feel for when you'd use one or the other. In keeping with its emphasis on clarifying basic concepts, this book avoids calculus, and actually is better for it in many places. That said, its approach is not purely thermodynamic. Thermo is based on macroscopic phenomena, even when discussing concepts like entropy. But this book's discussion of entropy is based on the statistical mechanics point of view from the get-go (even though stat mech isn't formally introduced until much later). It is not historically correct to say that "The Second Law is about the tendency of *particles* [emphasis in the original] to go from being concentrated to being spread out in space" (@60); the particle-based conception of the law followed the the law's discovery by several decades. The author's focus on particles fits in with the book's interest in chemistry. But the macroscopic point of view can give you many insights, too. (See, e.g., DeHoff's "Thermodynamics in Materials Science" for a non-biological example; ditto, in fact, for most engineering textbooks that deal with thermo.) The book doesn't have any self-contained hints or solutions to any of the exercises. (The author tells me that those interested in solutions should write to him or the publisher for a solution set. I appreciate this, and I hope that news benefits you if you read the book; but in future editions this would be more helpful if stated on a website or in a preface.) There are also rather more typos, awkward phrases and awkward analogies than one would like to see in a 2nd edition. E.g., @73 the description of protein denaturation mixes up "decreases" with "increases"; there are too many negative signs in Table 4.1; a reaction is described as "cooperative" @ 97, even though this term is never defined in the text, leaving one to be mystifed by the glossary entry for "cooperativity" ("the degree of 'concertedness' of a change in conformation or arrangement of particles in a system," @402). (The author tells me that he will try to correct some of these problems in the next printing.) An explantion of the First Law analogizing energy to money is kind of OK in the limited context (@6), but the analogy is generally misleading, since money is not a conserved quantity even in economics theory. The author also has a tiresome and fitful quirk of mentioning the occupations of the fathers of many, though not all, of the scientists he names in the text. Maybe the 3rd edition of this book will become a classic, but this edition isn't quite there yet.

This book looks written for a broad-minded reader, not one focused on “only what I need to know to take the exam.” Still, the author provides thorough coverage of essential ideas, often illustrating points with the results of recent discoveries. Conceptual content spans all relevant length scales, as is appropriate for undergraduate and introductory graduate study. The author does not come across as an academician desperae for a grant, tenure, promotion or election to an exclusive club - an increasing rarity. Instead, he seems interested in student learning. He also seems uninterested in boasting about knowlege of biomolecular structure and mathematical formalism, which though fascinating and necessary for some areas of research add little value to the larger part of undergraduate readers. There are some impecfections, a few typos, but they hardly detract from the general appeal of this work. One can expect interesting things to happen in this area of science for decades to come.

I'm a Ph.D. student in computational modeling specializing in applications in physics and bioinformatics. My bachelor's degree is in biophysics. I have read numerous biosciences books and texbooks by leading authors. In my opinion this book is one of the best biophysics books I have ever read. I found this book accessible, which is important for students, and yet engaging. The author provides broad coverage of the subject and thoroughly explains basic concepts. For instance, the first law is covered in its own chapter, as is the second law. There are two chapters of Gibbs free energy, with many practical applications, and one on statistical thermodynamics. The chapter on kinetics is an appropriate complement to a book whose main subject is thermodynamics. The final chapter reads like a popular book, introducing students to a number of very interesting and exciting areas for research. This is truly a unique textbook. My guess is that this book might become a classic.

Dear friends, the basic problem with this author(and hence the book) is, it preaches a lot of theory on thermodynamics which we hardly undestand just by reading.... he gives lot of review questions and problems at the end of chapters... Heartening... so far so good... And to your utter disappointment NO ANSWERS for the problems...an author of Mr Haynies' eminence should understand a little bit of student psychology... such a complicated subject like thermodynamics has to be taught through illustrative problems(a problem with detailed solution after explaining a theoretical aspect) which is totally absent in the book. In the preface (page xiii)author boasts that he has kept some 'open ended questions" which donot have a definite answer and he claims that it is the strength of this book!!!! phew!!!!!!!!!!! If you think that it is a strength , then you should gives us the different possible answers and justify your stand. Here there is nothing!!!!!!! NO ANSWERS... only questions... This book is uselesss,,,,, teethless... Don't buy this book

I have lots of books on thermodynamics and heat transfer due to my job and this one is a magnificent complement to the subject, from the life science angle. I am not into biology at all in principle, but I really liked and appreciated Haynie's approach. It definitely sheds new light on usual thermodynamics topics. I would recommend this book to engineers like me who want to deepen their understanding in thermodynamics. I may not be the exact main target public for this book of course, but I did like it. Great writing style too. And beautiful book production as usual from Cambridge. Only small gripe is about including 10 pages of some BASIC code at the end, this is really ridiculous.