I have been following this "heated" debate over the proper use of the
terms heat and thermal energy, mainly to see if I could gain some
understanding about these concepts that might have eluded me. So far, all
I have picked up is that "the vast majority of instructors have it wrong."
Pardon my innocence, but if such "giants" in the field as Zemansky
and Sears and other well-known authors have consistently gotten it wrong,
why did it happen, and who are the authorities who decide that they are
wrong? This is not a sarcastic question, it is quite serious. Jim and
Leigh have consistently and persistently stated that virtually all of us
get it wrong, so they must have some authoratative source that "gets it
right." I certainly am aware that most all authors of texts, since they
cannot be authorites on all subjects, will get some things wrong or choose
to adopt an approach that doesn't fit into the mainstream of physics
thinking. However, if the authors are flat wrong (as has been suggested),
this means that the myriad of text reviewers are equally ignorant and it
begs the question, "How did so many of us get it screwed up?" and more
importantly, "What jury came to that verdict?"
If Zemansky's text on Thermodynamics (as I remember one contributor quoting)
says that "heat is energy in transit" (or something to that effect), then
that grammatically classifies heat as a noun and Jim is vehemently stating
that heat is a verb! It makes me wonder how many other errors are in
Zemansky's text?
Finally, a question that I still want an answer to: If heat is work and
heat is a verb, then can I say, rather than heat an object, I can work it?
And my original question: "What does it mean to heat something?" It
certainly can't mean "apply heat to it," because that brings us back to the
caloric language, doesn't it? And what about thermal energy? It seems to
be another of Peck's Bad Boys. If I can't apply "thermal" to energy, is
there anything I CAN apply it to? Has it become a useless term?
Jim and Leigh, I am not picking on you. You have raised some important
questions and although the discussion may have reached asymptote long ago,
some interesting issues were seriously debated. But I think it's terribly
important that we understand what and who constitutes authority in our
field. We have an international union that decides what units mean and
how they are measured. I would like to think that we could come with a
similar authorative assemblage that would settle this "heat" and other
issues that for some reason we can't seem to agree on. Or it may just
be that Heisenberg will have the day--the more precise we make one thing,
the more confused we'll be about something else.
Peace.
Van
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Van E. Neie ven@physics.purdue.edu
Purdue University
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