Gemini Executive Synthesis
Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics.
Technical Positioning
A free educational resource for engineering thermodynamics.
SaaS Insight & Market Implications
This offering provides a free, accessible resource for a fundamental engineering discipline. The availability of high-quality educational materials without cost democratizes learning and supports academic and professional development. While not a SaaS product, it contributes to the broader ecosystem by fostering knowledge dissemination, potentially reducing educational barriers for students and self-learners. Its impact is on human capital development, indirectly benefiting industries reliant on skilled engineering talent by making foundational knowledge more widely available, thereby enhancing the overall talent pool.
Proprietary Technical Taxonomy
Raw Developer Origin & Technical Request
Hacker News
Apr 27, 2026
Show HN: Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics
Author here. Feel free to send questions of any kind.
Developer Debate & Comments
This is awesome. Also, this quote feels relevant: "Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics." - David Goodstein's States of Matter, Introduction
Nice. Good to see actual hard science books popularized and available for free.The textbook industry is a criminal cartel shafting both the students/knowledge seekers and authors/professors. Hence i really appreciate the way you have made the pdf available both for free and for a nominal price; so thank you.We need more hard science (Physics/Chemistry/Biology/etc.) content (books/articles/videos/etc.) on HN. For example, the interdisciplinary field of "Materials Science" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_science) is one the most practical and important for our modern world and yet there is hardly any discussions/popularization about it.
Cool, putting that to my reading list. And the pricing comparison is fun!
Tangentially related: It appears that TD ideas pop up in diffusion models, VAEs and neural net training dynamics. Any author/reading advice on links between thermodynamics, information, and neural nets?
I'd love to send you a few euros; but the checkout process requires both an email and a cell number. Are those strictly necessary to authorize a cc payment?
Hello,The textbook seems nice and clear. The only nitpick i have is that it should talk more about equations of state. I understand that it may not be the focus of the text, but mentioning the current state of equations of state (SAFTs, cubics, multiparameter) would help guide readers looking on how to generate their own steam tables for their fluid of interest, even if the advice is just "go use CoolProp"On the other hand, i really like the ilustrations on turbomachinery, helps ground the theoretical content.
Engineering books are very expensive in my country. I want to give calculus a spin. Spivak is a hundred dollars.
Love the price transparency, the obvious followup question is where the other ~85% of the pie goes when I buy a ~50€ paper book, if the author only earns a little under 15%?I imagine printing will be about 2 to 5€, if it's not ultra cheap print on demand refuse. Is the rest all for publishers and Amazon dot com?
Nice, I’ll definitely check this out. You might want to look at optimising the PDF, it’s sitting at 40MB right now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Market intelligence mapped to Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics..
What problem does Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics. solve?
Based on our AI analysis of the original developer request, its primary technical positioning is: A free educational resource for engineering thermodynamics.
What is the general sentiment around Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics.?
Yes, we have tracked 30 direct responses and active debates regarding this specific topic originating from Hacker News.
What architecture is tied to Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics.?
Our proprietary extraction maps Free textbook on engineering thermodynamics. to adjacent architectural concepts including engineering thermodynamics, textbook.
Engagement Signals
Cross-Market Term Frequency
Quantifies the cross-market adoption of foundational terms like engineering thermodynamics and textbook by tracking occurrence frequency across active SaaS architectures and enterprise developer debates.
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