Intrigue and entropy full#

By explaining engine power in terms of transfer of “caloric” from a hot body to a cold body Carnot provided a “caloric”-driven general theory of heat engines. Carnot’s genius manifested in his realization that “a similar theory is evidently needed for heat-engines…in the most general way the principle of the production of motion by heat…independently of any mechanism or any particular agent…whatever the working substance and whatever the method by which it is operated”. Carnot characterized the force-driven (powered) mechanical theory of “machines which do not receive their motion from heat” a “complete theory”. that are powered manually or by animals, wind, or water were all well understood in terms of the mechanical theory based on the concept of force, there was no fundamental theory on the operation of machines powered by heat (i.e., heat engines). Whereas the laws of operation of machines with components of lever, pulley, gear, etc.

Intrigue and entropy full#

As a consequence we have an understanding of heat that is full of contradictions-like an adolescent in a contradictory and puzzling wonderland that only entropic insight provided by Carnot and Planck can guide its growth into adulthood. Even though Thomson and Clausius both viewed their MTH projects to be the synthesis of both Joule’s thesis that work “required the consumption of heat” and Carnot’s thesis that work “required the transfer of heat”, by starting off with the definition of heat, that predisposition (commitment) precluded for their synthesis to do full justice to Carnot’s thesis. A critical assessment of MTH’s ontological commitment points to the conflict between that commitment and second law’s full development or the full expression.

This is a conclusion drawn here from a review of the evolution of the second law thought from its beginning by Carnot to its incorporation by Thomson and Clausius into MTH, which was based on the ontology doctrine of heat as a form of energy. With the new principle as its cornerstone replacing universal-interconvertibility, thermodynamics transcends the defective MTH and becomes a coherent conceptual system. And, presents a two-part formulation of the second law: universal entropy growth principle as well as a new principle that no change in Nature happens without entropy growth potential.

This paper reiterates that universal-interconvertibility is demonstrably false-as the case has been made by many others-by clarifying the true meaning of the mechanical equivalent of heat. However, by making universal-interconvertibility the cornerstone of MTH their synthesis-project was a defective one, which precluded MTH from developing the full expression of the second law. consumption led to what became known as the mechanical theory of heat (MTH). Eventually, Clausius formulated the 2nd-law as the universal entropy growth principle: the synthesis of transfer vs. That idea became the second law of thermodynamics when Thomson and Clausius reconciled Carnot’s theory with Joule’s conflicting thesis that power was derived from the consumption of heat, which was determined to be a form of energy. Carnot transformed it into a scientific discipline by explaining engine power in terms of transfer of “caloric”. At its origins, thermodynamics was the study of heat and engines.