Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire

Mendoza, E., ed. (1960). Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire by Sadi Carnot and Other Papers on the Second Law of Thermodynamics by E. Clapeyron and R. Clausius. New York Dover Publications, Inc. 

Sadi Carnot (full name Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot, Sadi after a Persian poet) was bom into one of the most emdite and influential families of the turbulent Napoleonic period. Sadi s father, Lazare Carnot, was a leading scientist and mathematician of his time, as well as a noted military commander who achieved high ministerial office under Napoleon. The father s profound intellectual influence on Sadi is apparent from parallels between Lazare s 1803 treatise, Fundamental Principles of Equilibrium and Movement, and Sadi s famous 1824 monograph, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire (Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu), which applied similarly general and abstract analysis to purely mechanical and thermomechanical devices, respectively. Among other accomplishments of this remarkable family, Sadi s younger brother, Hippolyte, became a noted writer and statesman, and the latter s eldest son, Marie Francois Sadi Carnot, later became a president of the Third Republic. 

The question of possible limits on the production of work from heat engines was taken up brilliantly by a young French military engineer, Sadi Carnot (Sidebar 4.1). Carnot s monograph of 1824, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, pointed to the answers to these questions in a remarkably bold and incisive (if abstract) way. Carnot introduces the question of the motive power (ability to cause movement) of fire (heat) in its most general terms ... 

Carnot s 118-page Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire received favorable reviews, then fell into obscurity. This was partly because the world was not ready to understand it, and partly because the theory s champion, Carnot, died in a cholera epidemic when he was 36 (and his personal effects, including many of his papers, were burned). And it was partly because the water analogy had limitations. 

The father of thermodynamics is Sadi Carnot. He wrote Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire in 1824. This was a discourse on heat, power, and engine efficiency. The Carnot engine, Carnot cycle, and Carnot equations are named after him. 

Carnot S (1824) Reflections sur la Puissance Motrice de Feu, found in the book ed. by Fox R, Librarie Philosophique (1978) (English trans Mendoza E (ed) (1960) Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire and Others). Dover, New York Carslaw HS, Jaeger JC (1959) Conduction of heat in solids. Oxford University Press, Oxford Chadwick P (1976) Continuum mecahnics concise theory and problems. Allen and Unwin, London... 

Camot is renowned for the one book he wrote a treatise of 118 pages eniiiXed Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power. This was published in 1824, when he was 28 and had retired from the army on half pay. 

Among studies which have appeared on the theory of heat 1 wiU mention finally a work by S. Carnot, published in 1824, with the title Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire. The idea which serves as a basis of his researches seems to me to he both fertile and beyond question his demonstrations are founded on the absur-... 

H. L. CaUendar, On a Practical Thermometric Standard. Phil. Mag., 48, 519-547 (1899). Sadi Carnot, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power. hi E. Mendoza, editor. Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire Sadi Carnot and other Papers on the Second Law of Thermodynamics by E. Clapeyron and R. Clausius, pages 1-59. Dover, Mineola, New York, 1988. Translation by R. H. Thurston of Reflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu et sur les Machines Propres a Developper cette Puissance, Bacheher, Paris, 1824. 

Carnot, S., Reflection on the Motive Power of Fire, Dover, New York, 1960. 

Carnot, Nicolas Leonard Sadi (1796-1832)AFrenchphysicistwhobeganhlscareer as a military engineer before turning to scientific research. In 1824 he published a book Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, which provided for the first lime a general theoretical approach to understanding the conditions under which the efficiency of heat engines could be maximized. The thermodynamic Carnot cycle eventoally led to the concept of entropy. He died aged 36 from cholera. 

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