History
Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, in his 1871 classic Theory of Heat, was one of many who began to build on the already established idea that heat has something to do with matter in motion. This was the same idea put forth by Sir Benjamin Thompson in 1798, who said he was only following up on the work of many others. One of Maxwell's recommended books was Heat as a Mode of Motion, by John Tyndall. Maxwell outlined four stipulations for the definition of heat:
- It is something which may be transferred from one body to another, according to the second law of thermodynamics.
- It is a measurable quantity, and thus treated mathematically.
- It cannot be treated as a substance, because it may be transformed into something that is not a substance, e.g., mechanical work.
- Heat is one of the forms of energy.
From empirically based ideas of heat, and from other empirical observations, the notions of internal energy and of entropy can be derived, so as to lead to the recognition of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. This was the way of the historical pioneers of thermodynamics.
Read more about this topic: Heat
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