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Re: Mass/Energy



On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:14:19 -0700, Jim Green <JMGreen@SISNA.COM> wrote:

Carnot
Carnot was a French diplomat's son -- and we all know how strange the
French are -- and was worried about military transport -- mostly with
concern for the timid British, who had just trounced the French. So, as
were many scientific developments, thermo was born as a military
advancement as the investigation of steam engines. Because of this, thermo
has been warped out of all reasonable perspective. Just because of that
damn adiabatic cylinder.


Carnot deduced (A) "All reversible machines working between the same two
temperatures have the same efficiency" from (B) "Heat is an indestructible
substance (calorique)", among other premises. Clausius and Kelvin loved
very much (A) - in fact, the development of this proposition had made them
celebrities. So when (B) definitively proved false, they tried desperately
to save (A). The challenge for them: if (B), then (A). But (B) is false;
nevertheless (A) must be true. If the woman is pregnant, a baby will be
born. But the pregnancy is false; nevertheless the baby must be born.
Clausius and Kelvin deduced (A) from (C) "Heat flows spontaneously from hot
to cold". The fact that (A) does not follow from (C) has not bothered
anybody for the last 150 years.

So in 1850 a revolution in theoretical physics started the fruits of which
are being consumed today.

Pentcho Valev