Basyouni 1

Name: Mohammed S. Basyouni

Class / Section: ENGW 3301
Due Date: 31
st
of July 2014


Project 2: Critical Appraisal


This essay is a comparison between two scholarly articles, showing their
similarities and differences, agreements and disagreements. As requested, the two articles
discussed are in my current field of study; they are also written by well-reputed
professors, peer-reviewed and published. After already analyzing and discussing the first
article by Bender, Meister and Brody in Project one, I tried to find an article discussing
the same topic and came across the publication in Science in China Series G. This essay
will firstly summarize their content and then analyze and discuss their characteristics.
Both articles were found in the Northeastern online Library Catalogue.
The first article is named Quantum-Mechanical Carnot Engine, written by Carl
M. Bender, Dorje C. Brody and Bernhard K. Meister and discusses the main concept and
differences between the Quantum-Mechanical Carnot Engine and the Classical Carnot
Engine developed by Nicolas Carnot, the father of Thermodynamics, in 1824.
This article is subdivided into four parts, the first being the Introduction, which
concisely explains the problem of energy loss in heat engines and what made Carnots
cycle revolutionary, and at the same time, hypothetical. Part two describes the different
kinds of processes of the quantum heat engine with the help of mathematical analysis
that, in combination, result in the existence of the quantum heat engine and prove that the
quantum-mechanical Carnot engine is analogous to the classical Carnot engine. Part
three, called the Quantum Carnot Cycle, describes the construction of the quantum cyclic
heat engine that relies on the previous part. In the last part of the article, the authors
highlight the differences between the two models and discuss both their application in
reality and the probability of establishing the two hypothetical models.
The second article is called Ecological optimization of an irreversible harmonic
oscillators Carnot heat engine and was written by XiaoWei Liu, LinGen Chen, FengRui
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Sun and Feng Wu. It addresses the concept of Nicolas Carnots heat engine in order to
modify the model so that it is ecologically enhanced. The article is divided into the
introduction and six main parts, which are as the following: Dynamic law of the working
medium, Model of irreversible harmonic oscillators Carnot heat engine, Cycle period,
Important performance parameters and analyses, Ecological optimization at the classical
limit, and lastly the Conclusion. Firstly, the introduction briefly gives the reader an
insight about the effort made throughout history to improve the performance of heat
engines by applying Quantum Mechanics. Secondly, the authors utilize general equations
of Thermodynamics so as to obtain a formula that gives the rate of change of energy in
the system. Thirdly, the optimized irreversible model is introduced to the reader by
showing formulas to find certain parameters supplied by the system. In the next part of
the article, the authors approach the matter of finding the time of the heat exchange
process by solving the motion equation. Subsequently, different performance parameters
are analyzed and derived to find their mathematical representation in the model. Second
to last, the authors focus on showing the ecological characteristic of their developed heat
engine model. Lastly, the conclusion revises the formulas obtained and discusses the
success of the theoretical model as well as its weaknesses.
The first article is written by three authors and published by IOP Science
Publishing in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematic and General (IOP Publishing).
One of the authors is Carl M. Bender, a distinguished professor of physics at Washington
University in St. Louis, who received his B.A. degree from Cornell University and M.A.
and Ph.D. from Harvard University (Washington University Physics Department).
Second author contributing to the article is Dorje C. Brody, who received his Ph.D. in
Theoretical Physics from the Imperial College London (Imperial College London). The
third author, Bernhard K. Meister, also received his Ph.D. from the Imperial College
London in Theoretical Physics (Department of Physics Renmin University of China).
The article Ecological optimization of an irreversible harmonic oscillators
Carnot heat engine was written by XiaoWei Liu, LinGen Chen, FengRui Sun and Feng
Wu. The first three authors are Postgraduates from the Naval University of Engineering,
Wuhan, China, whereas Mr. Feng Wu got his degrees from the School of Science of
Wuhan Institute of Technology in Wuhan, China as well as the Naval University of
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Engineering, Wuhan, China (SpringerLink). The article was published in Science in
China Series G: Physics, Mechanics and Astronomy in Volume 52, Issue 12 of December
2009 on pages 1976 1988 (Science China Press). In direct comparison both articles
were written by postgraduate scholars and published in renowned scientific publishing
firms, which leads the reader to think that both articles are certificated scientific articles.
Nevertheless, what stands out is that the second article was composed by postgraduates of
the same university, whereas the first article is a product of collaboration between
professors of different universities. One could argue that there is more differentiation in
research methods and analysis for the first article than the second, since all four authors
learnt the same techniques, theories and methods at the Naval University of Engineering.
After reading both articles, it can be noticed that the authors clearly address an
audience, which is knowledgeable and specialized in the field of Thermodynamics and
Theoretical Physics. Since both works are published by Science Publishers, the first by
IOP Science Publishing and the second in Science Press China, it supports the argument
that the articles are both scholarly and scientific. Moreover, the language is scientific and
relates directly to the topic of Thermodynamics and also, in the appendices the reader can
see sources and references listed by the authors, which include solely scientific topics.
All in all, both articles are accessible on the Internet and open for anyone with a verified
university account to read but because of their distinct language and their topic, it is more
likely that the authors address people, who work and study in the field of
Thermodynamics and understand the distinct terminology, such as Bosonic creation,
harmonic oscillators (article two, page 2) or Hamiltonian and eigenstates (article one,
page 6). Although, one article was published in China and written by three Chinese
scholars, whereas the other article is written by a British, an American and a German
scholar, both address the topic with the same approach of proving how Quantum Physics
can be added to Carnots original idea.
The thesis of the second article is presented in the abstract as well as in Part 6:
Conclusion. The authors extend Carnots classical heat engine model by creating an
irreversible heat engine with internal irreversibility and heat leakage in order to optimize
the model ecologically, as also mentioned in the title of the article. Moreover, the
introduction gives an overview as to how the article is structured and what can be
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expected and gained from the reading. The same argumentation structure can be found in
the first article, where the Introduction states the thesis, which is proved in the
calculations in the main part of the article and then, revised and analyzed in the
conclusion. Thus, both articles are structured the same way by stating the hypothesis,
then proving the thesis with formulas and reasoning and lastly, concluding the article
with risks and universality of their theses. This structure proves the universality of both
articles as there are international agreements and codices in science to overcome national
and cultural differences and also, to agree on how to analyze and conclude things the
same way. This is also why scientists from all over the world can work together in
institutions like the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Abdus
Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).
Since it can be found in the introductory statement of the second article, Liu,
Chen, Sun and Wu cited the previous article by Brody, Meister and Bender. Therefore, it
is most likely that the authors know about each others publication. Furthermore, both
articles were written in the same decade about the same topic, discussing the optimization
of Carnots heat engine concept, and both are scholarly published articles, which makes it
very possible for the two parties to know each other (Liu).
A major difference between both articles is the extent of research included in the
article. Although both articles roughly are ten pages long, the first article by Bender,
Brody and Meister has five sources listed, whereas the first article by Liu, Chen, Sun and
Wu states seventy-eight citation marks on the last three pages of the article. For once, the
reader could conclude the second article is based more on existing physics, which makes
it more credible but the audience could also conclude, that there is less own and new
conclusions in the second article. Secondly, while comparing the authors of both
appendices, it is clear that the first article concentrates more on researches by Western
scientists, such as Max Planck (German), Max Born (German / British) and Leonard
Schiff (USA), whereas the second article extends the spectrum of theories by using
published works of authors from all over the world, such as Adrian Bejan (USA), Bekir
Sisman (Turkey), S.C Kaushik (India), Bjarne Andresen (Denmark) or also, Marco A.
Barranco Jimnez (Mexico). This could mean that the second article explores more
theories by broadening the range of research, reading non-western scholars approaches
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and including them in the analysis. Besides that, both articles different approach
concludes to the same result that modern Quantum Physics extends Carnots heat engine
process. As both draw on the same basic formulas by Heisenberg and Planck (first article:
page one and two, second article: page two and three), use the same argumentation
structure, draw on the same original theory by Carnot and both try to prove their thesis by
applying Quantum Physics, it is just more than logical that their conclusions are going to
be similar as to how Carnot can be adapted into modern physics.
Summarizing, taking aside that the authors come from different geographical
locations, studied at different institutions and used different theoretical approaches, both
articles prove their thesis with the same structure and a highly scientific and theoretical
language. Moreover, both articles make use of the same material by Carnot and apply
Quantum Physics and also, both are universally applicable and contribute to the field of
Quantum Physics. In content, both articles try to prove and state how it can ever be
possible to make machines fully reversible and not lose any energy. The only difference
between both articles is that article two is more focused on applying and broadening
existing research in comparison to article one, which focuses more on deriving its own
formulas and methodology.














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Works Cited

Department of Physics Renmin University of China. "Renmin University of China." 1st
January 2014. Faculty and Staff. 17th July 2014
<http://sphysics.ruc.edu.cn/en/100746/20047.html>.

Imperial College London. "Imperial College London." 1st January 2014. Faculty of
Natural Sciences, Department of Mathematics. 17th July 2014
<http://www.imperial.ac.uk/AP/faces/pages/read/Home.jsp?person=d.brody&_adf.ctrl-
state=10t6tt0go1_3&_afrRedirect=836516409761108>.

IOP Publishing. "IOP Science ." 1st January 2014. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical
and General. 17th July 2014 <http://iopscience.iop.org/0305-4470>.
Science China Press. Chinese Academy of Sciences. 1st January 2011. 20th July 2014
<http://phys.scichina.com/>.

SpringerLink. Spriner, Part of Springer Science+Business Media. 1st December 2009.
20th July 2014 <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11433-009-0300-1>.
Washington University Physics Department. "Washington University in St. Louis." 1st
January 2014. Carl M. Bender's Home Page. 17th July 2014
<http://physics.wustl.edu/cmb/>.

Liu, Chen, Sun, Wu. Ecological optimization of an irreversible harmonic oscillators
Carnot heat engine. 1st December 2009. 20th July 2014
<http://phys.scichina.com:8083/sciGe/fileup/PDF/09yg1976.pdf>.