The Story of Great InventionsBurns, Elmer Ellsworth
History
The Story of Great Inventions
Burns, Elmer Ellsworth
Inventions -- History
What is true of a man is true of an engine. The work the engine does, as
well as the heat it produces, comes from the heat of the fuel in the
furnace. Mayer found that one hundred pounds of coal in a good working
engine produces the same amount of heat as ninety-five pounds in an
engine that is not working. In the working engine the heat of the five
pounds of coal is used up in the work of running the engine, and
therefore does not heat the engine. Heat that is used in running the
engine is no longer heat, but work. So Mayer said the heat is not
destroyed, but only changed into work. He said, further, that the work
of running the engine may be changed again into heat.
Mayer's theory was opposed by many scientific men of Europe. One great
scientist said to him that if his theory were correct water could be
warmed by shaking. He remembered what the helmsman had remarked to him
on the voyage to Java, that water beaten about by a storm is warmer than
quiet sea-water; but he said nothing. He went to his laboratory, tried
the experiment, and some weeks later returned, exclaiming: "It is so! It
is so!" He had warmed water simply by shaking it.
These results mean that work or energy cannot be destroyed. Though it
changes form in many ways, it is never destroyed. Neither can man create
energy; he can only direct its changes as the engineer, by the motion of
his finger in opening a valve, sets the locomotive in motion. He does
not move the locomotive. He directs the energy already in the steam.
Since the time of Galileo, men had caught now and then a glimpse of this
great law. Galileo had stated his law of machines; that, when a machine
does work, a man or a horse or some other power does an equal amount of
work upon the machine. Count Rumford had performed his experiment with
the cannon, showing that heat is produced by the work of a horse. Davy
had proved that, in the voltaic battery, something must be used up to
produce the current--the mere contact of the metals is not sufficient.
Faraday had said that in no case is there a production of electrical
power without something being used up to supply it. Mayer stated clearly
this law of energy when he said that energy cannot be created or
destroyed, but only changed from one form to another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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