Popular scientific lectures

by Ernst Mach

IV. THE CONCEPTIONS OF HEAT.

When a cold body is put in contact with a warm body it is observed that the first body is warmed and that the second body is cooled. We may say that the first body is warmed at the expense of the second body. This suggests the notion of a thing, or heat-substance, which passes from the one body to the other. If two masses of water m, m', of unequal temperatures, be put together, it will be found, upon the rapid equalisation of the temperatures, that the respective changes of temperatures u and u' are inversely proportional to the masses and of opposite signs, so that the algebraical sum of the products is,

mu + m'u' = 0.

Black called the products mu, m'u', which are decisive for our knowledge of the process, quantities of heat. We may form a very clear picture of these products by conceiving them with Black as measures of the quantities of some substance. But the essential thing is not this picture but the constancy of the sum of these products in simple processes of conduction. If a quantity of heat disappears at one point, an equally large quantity will make its appearance at some other point. The retention of this idea leads to the discovery of specific heat. Black, finally, perceives that also something else may appear for a vanished quantity of heat, namely: the fusion or vaporisation of a definite quantity of matter. He adheres here still to this favorite view, though with some freedom, and considers the vanished quantity of heat as still present, but as latent.

The generally accepted notion of a caloric, or heat-stuff, was strongly shaken by the work of Mayer and Joule. If the quantity of heat can be increased and diminished, people said, heat cannot be a substance, but must be a motion. The subordinate part of this statement has become much more popular than all the rest of the doctrine of energy. But we may convince ourselves that the motional conception of heat is now as unessential as was formerly its conception as a substance. Both ideas were favored or impeded solely by accidental historical circumstances. It does not follow that heat is not a substance from the fact that a mechanical equivalent exists for quantity of heat. We will make this clear by the following question which bright students have sometimes put to me. Is there a mechanical equivalent of electricity as there is a mechanical equivalent of heat? Yes, and no. There is no mechanical equivalent of quantity of electricity as there is an equivalent of quantity of heat, because the same quantity of electricity has a very different capacity for work, according to the circumstances in which it is placed; but there is a mechanical equivalent of electrical energy.

Let us ask another question. Is there a mechanical equivalent of water? No, there is no mechanical equivalent of quantity of water, but there is a mechanical equivalent of weight of water multiplied by its distance of descent.

When a Leyden jar is discharged and work thereby performed, we do not picture to ourselves that the quantity of electricity disappears as work is done, but we simply assume that the electricities come into different positions, equal quantities of positive and negative electricity being united with one another.

What, now, is the reason of this difference of view in our treatment of heat and of electricity? The reason is purely historical, wholly conventional, and, what is still more important, is wholly indifferent. I may be allowed to establish this assertion.

In 1785 Coulomb constructed his torsion balance, by which he was enabled to measure the repulsion of electrified bodies. Suppose we have two small balls, A, B, which over their whole extent are similarly electrified. These two balls will exert on one another, at a certain distance r of their centres, a certain repulsion p. We bring into contact with B now a ball C, suffer both to be equally electrified, and then measure the repulsion of B from A and of C from A at the same distance r. The sum of these repulsions is again p. Accordingly something has remained constant. If we ascribe this effect to a substance, then we infer naturally its constancy. But the essential point of the exposition is the divisibility of the electric force p and not the simile of substance.

In 1838 Riess constructed his electrical air-thermometer (the thermoelectrometer). This gives a measure of the quantity of heat produced by the discharge of jars. This quantity of heat is not proportional to the quantity of electricity contained in the jar by Coulomb's measure, but if Q be this quantity and C be the capacity, is proportional to Q²/2C, or, more simply still, to the energy of the charged jar. If, now, we discharge the jar completely through the thermometer, we obtain a certain quantity of heat, W. But if we make the discharge through the thermometer into a second jar, we obtain a quantity less than W. But we may obtain the remainder by completely discharging both jars through the air-thermometer, when it will again be proportional to the energy of the two jars. On the first, incomplete discharge, accordingly, a part of the electricity's capacity for work was lost.

When the charge of a jar produces heat its energy is changed and its value by Riess's thermometer is decreased. But by Coulomb's measure the quantity remains unaltered.

Now let us imagine that Riess's thermometer had been invented before Coulomb's torsion balance, which is not a difficult feat, since both inventions are independent of each other; what would be more natural than that the "quantity" of electricity contained in a jar should be measured by the heat produced in the thermometer? But then, this so-called quantity of electricity would decrease on the production of heat or on the performance of work, whereas it now remains unchanged; in that case, therefore, electricity would not be a substance but a motion, whereas now it is still a substance. The reason, therefore, why we have other notions of electricity than we have of heat, is purely historical, accidental, and conventional.

This is also the case with other physical things. Water does not disappear when work is done. Why? Because we measure quantity of water with scales, just as we do electricity. But suppose the capacity of water for work were called quantity, and had to be measured, therefore, by a mill instead of by scales; then this quantity also would disappear as it performed the work. It may, now, be easily conceived that many substances are not so easily got at as water. In that case we should be unable to carry out the one kind of measurement with the scales whilst many other modes of measurement would still be left us.

In the case of heat, now, the historically established measure of "quantity" is accidentally the work-value of the heat. Accordingly, its quantity disappears when work is done. But that heat is not a substance follows from this as little as does the opposite conclusion that it is a substance. In Black's case the quantity of heat remains constant because the heat passes into no other form of energy.

If any one to-day should still wish to think of heat as a substance, we might allow that person this liberty with little ado. He would only have to assume that that which we call quantity of heat was the energy of a substance whose quantity remained unaltered, but whose energy changed. In point of fact we might much better say, in analogy with the other terms of physics, energy of heat, instead of quantity of heat.

When we wonder, therefore, at the discovery that heat is motion, we wonder at something that was never discovered. It is perfectly indifferent and possesses not the slightest scientific value, whether we think of heat as a substance or not. The fact is, heat behaves in some connexions like a substance, in others not. Heat is latent in steam as oxygen is latent in water.