Title
Energy, the subtle concept [electronic resource] : the discovery of Feynman's blocks from Leibniz to Einstein / Jennifer Coopersmith.
ISBN
9780191576331 (electronic bk.)
9780199546503
Imprint
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, USA, c2010.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xiv, 400 p.) : ill.
Call Number
QC72 .C66 2010eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
531/.609
Summary
Energy is at the heart of physics (and of huge importance to society) and yet no book exists specifically to explain it, and in simple terms. In tracking the history of energy, this book is filled with the thrill of the chase, the mystery of smoke and mirrors, and presents a fascinating human-interest story. Following the history provides a crucial aid to understanding: this book explains the intellectual revolutions required to comprehend energy, revolutions as profound as those stemming from Relativity and Quantum Theory. Texts by Descartes, Leibniz, Bernoulli, d'Alembert, Lagrange, Hamilton, Boltzmann, Clausius, Carnot and others are made accessible, and the engines of Watt and Joule are explained. Many fascinating questions are covered, including: Why just kinetic and potential energies--is one more fundamental than the other? What are heat, temperature and action? What is the Hamiltonian? What have engines to do with physics? Why was the steam discovered in just one place? Why S=klogW works and why temperature is IT. Which is better, the force- or the energy-picture? Using only a minimum of mathematics, this book explains the emergence of the modern concept of energy, in all its forms: Hamilton's mechanics and how it shaped twentieth-century physics, and the meaning of kinetic energy, potential energy, temperature, action, and entropy. It is as much an explanation of fundamental physics as a history of the fascinating discoveries that lie behind our knowledge today.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Feynman's blocks
Perpetual motion
Vis viva: the first 'block' of energy
Heat in the seventeenth century
Heat in the eighteenth century
The discovery of latent and specific heats
A hundred and one years of mechanics: Newton to Lagrange
A tale of two countries: the rise of the steam engine and the caloric theory of heat
Rumford, Davy and Young
Naked heat: the gas laws and the specific heats of gases
Two contrasting characters: Fourier and Herapath
Sadi Carnot
Hamilton and Green
The mechanical equivalent of heat
Faraday and Helmholtz
The laws of thermodynamics: Thomson and Clausius
A forward look
Impossible things, difficult things
19. Conclusions.
