The origin of the principle of
Carnot is clearly determined, and it is very rare to be able to go
back thus certainly to the source of a discovery. Sadi Carnot had,
truth to say, no precursor. In his time heat engines were not yet very
common, and no one had reflected much on their theory. He was
doubtless the first to propound to himself certain questions, and
certainly the first to solve them.
It is known how, in 1824, in his _Reflexions sur la puissance motrice
du feu_, he endeavoured to prove that "the motive power of heat is
independent of the agents brought into play for its realization," and
that "its quantity is fixed solely by the temperature of the bodies
between which, in the last resort, the transport of caloric is
effected"--at least in all engines in which "the method of developing
the motive power attains the perfection of which it is capable"; and
this is, almost textually, one of the enunciations of the principle at
the present day. Carnot perceived very clearly the great fact that, to
produce work by heat, it is necessary to have at one's disposal a fall
of temperature.
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