History
James Joule studied the relationship between heat, work, and temperature. He observed that if he did mechanical work on a fluid, such as water, by agitating the fluid, its temperature increased. He proposed that the mechanical work he was doing on the system was converted to thermal energy. Specifically, he found that 4185.5 joules of energy were needed to raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.
Read more about this topic: Internal Energy
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)