On the basis of new, concise foundations, this paper establishes the four
laws of thermodynamics, the Maxwell relations, and the stability requirements
for response functions, in a form applicable to global (homogeneous), local
(hydrodynamic) and microlocal (kinetic) equilibrium.
The present, self-contained treatment needs very little formal machinery and
stays very close to the formulas as they are applied by the practicing
physicist, chemist, or engineer. From a few basic assumptions, the full
structure of phenomenological thermodynamics and of classical and quantum
statistical mechanics is recovered.
Care has been taken to keep the foundations free of subjective aspects (which
traditionally creep in through information or probability). One might describe
the paper as a uniform treatment of the nondynamical part of classical and
quantum statistical mechanics ``without statistics'' (i.e., suitable for the
definite descriptions of single objects) and ``without mechanics'' (i.e.,
independent of microscopic assumptions). When enriched by the traditional
examples and applications, this paper may serve as the basis for a course on
thermal physics.Comment: 78 page
