Abstract
THE two outstanding conceptions of the nineteenth century were undoubtedly the principle of the conservation of energy, and the closely allied and supplementary principle of the dissipation of energy. Energy was conserved amid all its protean changes, but at each change its availability was lessened. On these two foundations rests the whole structure of thermodynamics. Neither of these conceptions stands exactly where it did, though a good deal of strong evidence will be required to shake the former. In a remarkable paper, read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society only a few months before his death, Prof. Liyeing, at the age of ninety-five, threw out a challenge to the latter. Looking back over an active career covering in point of time almost the whole of what we now call science, the veteran felt that the dissipation of energy was not the whole truth. This universe could not be destined to subside into a tideless sea of unavailable energy, moved by no currents, stirred by no ripple, changeless and unchangeable. Somewhere, by some unknown process, the degraded energy must be undergoing a process of renewal and reintegration, to play its part once more in the physical world.
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The Fate of the Energy of the Universe: a Tangled Skein. Nature 115, 405–406 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115405a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115405a0