Abstract
During the 1840s, many scientists recognized that heat is not a substance but a form of energy that can be converted into other forms. James Prescott Joule and Rudolf Clausius went a step further. Heat can produce mechanical energy, and mechanical energy can produce heat; therefore, they reasoned, the “heat energy” of a substance is simply the kinetic energy of its atoms and molecules. This idea, which forms the basis of the kinetic-molecular theory of heat, is largely correct.
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Further Reading
G. Holton, and S.G. Brush, Physics, The Human Adventure (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000), Chapters 18–22.
H.C. von Baeyer, Maxwell’s Demon: Why Warmth Disperses and Time Passes (New York: Random House, 1998). Softcover: Warmth Disperses and Time Passes: A History of Heat ( New York: Modern Library, 1999 ).
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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Cassidy, D., Holton, G., Rutherford, J. (2002). Heat-A Matter of Motion. In: Understanding Physics. Undergraduate Texts in Contemporary Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_7
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