1834 Definition
In 1834, the French mining engineer Emile Clapeyron refers to Carnot’s motive power as “mechanical action”. As an example, during the expansion stroke of a piston engine he states that: “the gas will have developed a quantity of mechanical action during its expansion given by the integral of the product of the pressure times the differential of the volume.” Clapeyron then goes on to use graphical methods to show how this "mechanical action", i.e. work in modern terms, could be calculated.
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“The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction.... The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyperreal.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)