JOULE, JAMES PRESCOTT. & WILLIAM THOMSON (LORD KELVIN).

On the Air-Engine. Received May 13, - Read June 19, 1851. (+) Additional Note on the preceding Paper. By William Thomson. (Synthetical Investigation of the Duty of a Perfect Thermo-Dynamic Engine founded on the Expansions and Condensation of a Fluid, for which the gaseous laws hold and the ratio (k) of the specific heat under constant pressure to the specific heat in constant volume is constant; and modification of the resultby the assumption of Mayer's hypothesis.).

(London, Richard Taylor and William Francis, 1852). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Philosophical Transactions" 1852 - Part I. Pp. 65-82. (Thomson pp. 78-82). a. 1 engraved plate. The plate with a dampstain., otherwise clean and fine.

First appearance of an importent paper in which both Joule and Lord Kelvin publish some thermo-dynamical results in connection with heat developed by air and mechanical work as further proofs of the conservation of energy.
Joule is well known for his discovery of Joule's Law, the connection between heat and mechanical work, where heat is a form of energy.
"In December of 1840 he presented a paper to the Royal Society on the production of heat by the electric current. His course of thought led him to the consideration of the relatio between heat and and mechanical work. The results of his investigations were embodied in a series of papers which culminated in his great memoir on the mechanical equivalent of heat, published in 1850. Joule was one of the founders of the principle of the cosservation of energy. Some of his work was done in collaboration with Lord Kelvin."(Source Book in Physics p. 203).

Order-nr.: 42336