Abstract
IT is not many years since the appearance of the first thoroughly scientific treatise on heat in the English language, and now we hail the advent of a well-written introduction to more advanced works: a book intended for the beginner who is supposed to possess nothing but a fair knowledge of arithmetic and an average amount of intelligence. This book is full of excellent examples of the various laws of heat, in which the author makes use of the metrical system of measurements, and the centigrade scale of temperature; and the student who has worked through these questions cannot fail to have acquired a good practical knowledge of the subject of heat, as well as an appreciation of the advantage of the metrical system. Nor are theoretical views left out, and although the treatise only professes to be an introductory one, we have a good elementary account of the dynamical theory of heat, including the grand laws of the conservation and dissipation of energy. The author is undoubtedly right in accustoming the student at an early age to think of, and if possible apprehend, this great generalisation, for in truth it forms the appropriate supplement to and completion of the ordinary laws of motion, and should be studied along with these; otherwise the student may be led to conceive that when two equally massive inelastic balls strike one another with equal and opposite velocities, the result is nil, and to entertain many similar absurdities. And inasmuch as the laws of motion find their way into introductory treatises on natural philosophy, so should the laws of energy find a place in these. In the study of such laws, the student cannot too soon become accustomed to those technical terms which are necessary to give accurate expression to his conception; and we are glad the author has introduced the terms kinetic and potential although we think that on one or two occasions he has used the word force where energy would have been preferable.
An Introduction to the Science of Heat.
—By Temple Augustus Orme. (London: Groombridge & Sons.)
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S., B. An Introduction to the Science of Heat. Nature 1, 134 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001134b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001134b0