Re: What Flows? & I raise you

[palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)]

> Of course some are on the sidelines stomping their feet and thinking "Hey,
> heat as a substance was good enough for Carnot, so it is good enough for me."

Bzzzz. Rumford demolished caloric in 1798.
Carnot quantified the second law in 1824.
Carnot really had it all together. I'll
cheer for him, too. He knew it all - and
he had no need for microscopic mechanism.

> I am back to yelling at my computer screen!  HEAT IS NOT ENERGY.

Indeed. Heat has the same dimensions as energy,
much as torque hasthe same dimensions as energy.
Neither *is* energy. Energy is a function of the
state of a system. It is an abstract quantity
which pertains to a system and has no independent
existence.

"What flows?" is beginning to remind me of diarrhea,
so I have a proposal. Let's talk about another
thermal phenomenon, the thermal expansion of solids.
It is a phenomenon which cries out for microscopic
description. How do you "explain" thermal expansion
to high school students?

Leigh