The History of Thermodynamics

1. The History of Thermodynamics

2. Early History In pre-history, the time before writing and documentation, the oral tradition taught that things were either hot or cold. Ancient cooks, bakers, smelters, smiths, potters, and ceramists did not form a distinction between heat and temperature. They relied on visually observing whether something was ready or by crudely timing certain processes. Specific definitions for temperature became necessary as humanity progressed and the need arose.

3. Empedocles (490 – 430 BC) Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements. He also proposed powers called Love and Strife which would act as forces to bring about the mixture and separation of the elements. These physical speculations were part of a history of the universe which also dealt with the origin and development of life. Influenced by the Pythagoreans, he supported the doctrine of reincarnation. Empedocles is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to record his ideas in verse. Some of his work survives, more than in the case of any other Presocratic philosopher. Empedocles' death was mythologized by ancient writers, and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments.

4. cosmogenic Any scientific theory concerning the coming into existence of the cosmos, the universe, reality, or sentient beings.

5. Four Classical Elements Many philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs inspired by natural observation of the phases of matter; with the classical elements: earth is equivalent to solid, water is equivalent to liquid, air is equivalent to gas and fire is equivalent to plasma. Historians trace the evolution of modern theory pertaining to the chemical elements, as well as chemical compounds and mixtures of natural substances to medieval, and Greek models. Many concepts once thought to be analogous, such as the Chinese Wu Xing, are now understood more figuratively.

6. The Pythagoreans Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagorean cult, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism. Later revivals of Pythagorean doctrines led to what is now called Neopythagoreanism.

7. Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) Aristotle added to the Empedoclean belief of Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire the concept of the Aether. He furthered this idea with his concept of hot, cold, moist, and dry. Aristotelian concepts were taught and accepted for more than 2000 years.

8. Ctesibius (285 – 222 BC) Ctesibius or Ktesibios or Tesibius (Greek: Κτησίβιος) was a Greek inventor and mathematician in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt. He wrote the first treatises on the science of compressed air and its uses in pumps (and even a cannon). This, in combination with his work on the elasticity of air On pneumatics, earned him the title of "father of pneumatics." None of his written work has survived, including his Memorabilia, a compilation of his research that was cited by Athenaeus.

9. Ctesibius was probably the first head of the Museum of Alexandria. Very little is known of his life but his inventions were well known. It is said (possibly by Diogenes Laertius) that his first career was as a barber. During his time as a barber, he invented a counterweight-adjustable mirror. His other inventions include the hydraulis, a water organ that is considered the precursor of the modern pipe organ, and improved the water clock or clepsydra ("water thief"). The clepsydra kept more accurate time than any clock invented until the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens detailed the use of a pendulum to regulate a clock in the 17th century. He described one of the first force pumps for producing a jet of water, or for lifting water from wells, and examples have been found at various Roman sites, such as at Silchester in Britain. The principle of the siphon has also been attributed to him.

10. Water Driven Pump YouTube

11. A hydraulis

12. Clepsydra YouTube YouTube

13. Philo of Byzantium (280-220 BC) Was also known as Philo Mechanicus. He was a Greek engineer and writer on mechanics. He lived most of his life in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote a large text called The Compendium of Mechanics. Sections included mathematics, mechanics, harbour building, artillery, devices operated by air or water pressure, mechanical toys, siege engines, and even secret letters.

14. Philo Designed the first water mill…as recorded by history. Doubled the cube. Why? Given a catapult, construct a second catapult that is capable of firing a projectile twice as heavy as the projectile of the first.

15. Philo The piston pump of Ctesibius (an engineer from Alexandria, Egypt, 3rd century BC) was described by Philo of Byzantium (2nd century BC) because Ctesibius’ book was lost. It was a force pump and was submerged in water.

16. Galen (130 – 200 AD) AeliusGalenus or Claudius Galenus (AD 129 – 200/216), better known as Galen of Pergamon (modern day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman (of Greek ethnicity) physician, surgeon and philosopher. Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers in antiquity, Galen contributed greatly to the understanding of numerous scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.

17. Galen Galen was one of the first true scientists to follow a form of the scientific method. He collected data and made observations. His conclusions were made from his observations. He was the first to describe heat and cold by a number and the word temperature derived from temper after Galen determined the complexion of a person by the proportion of the four qualities….hot, cold, moist, and dry. He considered them to be tempered.

18. Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria(10 – 70 AD) Heron was an ancient Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Egypt. He is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition. Hero published a well recognized description of a steam powered device called an aeolipile. (sometimes called Hero’s engine) Among his famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land. He is said to have been a follower of the Atomists. Some of his ideas were derived from the works of Ctesibius.

19. The Hero Engine

20. Heron of Alexandria He also invented the force pump, which is used on fire engines The vending machine (no kidding) The syringe And a movable cart (caused by a falling object….strings were attached to a drive shaft

21. The Thermoscope A thermoscope is a device that shows changes in temperature. A typical design is a tube in which a liquid rises and falls as the temperature changes. Galileo Galilei discovered the principle on which the device is based. He made the first known thermoscope around 1592. Giuseppe Biancani published the first clear diagram of a thermoscope in 1617. Although the device shows changes in temperature, the concept of temperature as a measurable quantity was not developed until later. Adding a temperature scale to a thermoscope makes a thermometer. This was done in 1701 by Ole Christensen Rømer with the Rømer scale, though a reproducible scale had been developed by Robert Fludd in 1638, and the earliest scale was possibly by Francesco Sagredo or Santorio Santorio in about 1611 to 1613.

22. The Thermoscope

23. The Thermometer Galileo Galilei, Santorio Santorio, Robert Fludd, and Cornelius Drebbel are credited with inventing the thermometer. A thermometer (from the Greek θερμός, thermos, meaning "hot" and μἐτρον, metron, "measure") is a device that measures temperature or temperature gradient using a variety of different principles. A thermometer has two important elements: the temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb on a mercury-in-glass thermometer) in which some physical change occurs with temperature, plus some means of converting this physical change into a numerical value (e.g. the visible scale that is marked on a mercury-in-glass thermometer).

24. Galileo Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science".

25. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honor), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments. Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact.

26. Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarized the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials.

27. Santorio Santorio SanctoriusSanctorius (29 March 1561 Capodistria (today Koper) – 22 February 1636 Venice), also called SantorioSantorii, SanctoriusofPadua, and various combinations of these names, was an Italian physiologist, physician, and professor. From 1611 to 1624 he was a professor at Padua where he performed experiments in temperature, respiration and  weight. Sanctorius studied what he termed insensible perspiration and originated the study of metabolism.

28. For a period of thirty years Sanctorius weighed himself, everything he ate and drank, as well as his urine and feces. He compared the weight of what he had eaten to that of his waste products, the latter being considerably smaller. He produced his theory of insensible perspiration as an attempt to account for this difference. His findings had little scientific value, but he is still celebrated for his empirical methodology. The "weighing chair", which he constructed and employed during this experiment, is also famous. Santorio was the first to publish his temperature scale so received credit for developing it.

29. The scale on thermometer was not standardized until 1663. The Royal Society of London used only thermometers made by Robert Hooke. From 1611 to 1841, eighteen different scales were developed by craftsman.

30. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit From 1708 to 1724 Fahrenheit began to study and modify the thermometer. He improved the precision by making it a thin cylinder rather than a globe. He also used mercury instead of alcohol because mercury expands more linearly with temperature change. According to a letter Fahrenheit wrote to Herman Boerhaave, his scale was built around a scale designed by Ole Roemer. Roemer was a Danish Astronomer.

31. On Roemer’s scale, brine freezes at 0 degrees, ice melts at 7.5 degrees, body temperature is 22.5 degrees, and water boils at 60 degrees. Fahrenheit didn’t like the fractions so he multiplied everything by four. His numbers were 0, 30, 90, and 240. He then recalibrated his scale using the melting point of ice and normal human body temperature. He adjusted the scale so that the melting point of ice would be 32 and body temp would be 96 so that there would be 64 intervals between the two. He then adjusted his intervals to the boiling point and that came to be 212.

32. Cornelius Drebbel (1572 – 1633) Crafts a thermometer with a scale in 1617 independently. Drebbel was a Dutch inventor who designed and built the first navigable submarine. He made contributions to measurement, control systems, optics, and chemistry.

33. Robert Fludd In 1638, he invented a thermometer. In 1665 Christiaan Huygens proposed using the melting and boiling points of water as standards. He did not pursue this, however. 1694 Carlo Renaldini used the melting points and boiling points of water as fixed points on a scale.

34. Isaac Newton Developed a temperature scale using lindseed oil. He called his instrument a thermometer after the Greek thermo meaning warm and meter to measure.

35. In 1701 the Danish Astronomer Ole Christensen Romer proposed the Romer temperature scale using brine. In 1714, Fahrenheit develops his temperature scale. 1731 Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumer developed a scale that placed the freezing and boiling points of water 80 degrees apart. This scale is known as an octogesimal division. In 1732, Joseph Nicolas Delisle invented a temperature scale. He was a french astronomer.

36. In 1742, Anders Celsius developed a scale in which the freezing point of water was 100 and the boiling point was 0. The scale was later flipped by Carolus Linnaeus in 1744. In 1848, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, determined that the lowest absolute temperature is -273.15 Celsius. He set this point to zero and developed a new scale. It was later called the Kelvin scale.

37. Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691) discovered experimentally that the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to the pressure applied to it when the temperature is held constant. Jacques Charles (1746 – 1823) found that when pressure is low and constant, the volume of a gas increases when temperature increases linearly. Joseph Gay Lussac (1778 – 1850) found that at constant volume the pressure of a gas is directly proportional to the temperature.