Thermal Energy - Historical Context

Historical Context

In an 1847 lecture entitled On Matter, Living Force, and Heat, James Prescott Joule characterized various terms that are closely related to thermal energy and heat. He identified the terms latent heat and sensible heat as forms of heat each effecting distinct physical phenomena, namely the potential and kinetic energy of particles, respectively. He describes latent energy as the energy of interaction in a given configuration of particles, i.e. a form of potential energy, and the sensible heat as an energy affecting temperature measured by the thermometer due to the thermal energy, which he called the living force.

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