From Heat to Thermal Science: A History of Thermodynamics(Perspectives on the History of Chemistry)

About the Book

This book explores the human understanding of heat, from early cultural perceptions to the scientific developments that shaped thermal science. Beginning with historical musings on heat, it traces the evolution of scientific thought from 16th-century Italy to the quantum understanding of heat in the 20th century. The book examines how humans have perceived, measured, and produced heat, leading to a unified concept that has remained constant: "heat flows from a hot body to a cold body''. It serves as an excellent resource for chemists and anyone interested in the history of chemistry and science.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Concept of Heat and Boyle’s Natural History of Cold.- Temperature and Thermometers: The Development of the Concept of Temperature and the Invention of Laboratory Thermometers.- Herman Boerhaave: The Natural History of Fire (Heat).- Joseph Black: Towards an Experimental Foundation of Thermodynamics.- Antoine Lavoisier: Mémoire sur La Chaleur (1780) Presented and Critiqued by Clifford Truesdell’s The Tragicomical History of Thermodynamics 1822-1854 (1980).- Sadi Carnot: Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu et sur les Machines Propre a Développer cette Puissance (1824).- James Joule: The Foundation of the Experimental Science of Energy.- Victor Regnault: Quantitative Science of the Thermodynamics of Gases.- William Rankine: The Chemical Engineering of Heat.- Lord Kelvin: Gathering the Pieces and Creating Thermodynamics.- Rudolph Clausius: The Mechanical Theory of Heat (1867,1879) and the Formulation of the Laws of Thermodynamics.- Josiah Willard Gibbs: The Complete Theory of Thermodynamics.- James Clerk Maxwell: Towards a Microscopic Theory of Heat.- Ludwig Boltzmann: The Creation of the Full Theory of Statistical Thermodynamics and Kinetics.- John Tyndall: Infrared Radiation as Heat.- Walther Nernst: Experimental and Theoretical Applications of Thermodynamics to Chemistry (1907) and The New Heat Theorem (1917).- Max Planck: Towards a Quantum Understanding of Heat.- Albert Einstein: The Invention of the Full Theory of Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics.- Leon Brillouin: Solid State Physics and the Importance of Phonons.- Max Born: The Importance of Phonons and Electrons in the Science of Heat.- Thermal Conductivity in the 21st Century.

About the Author :

Gary D. Patterson is Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA USA. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1972 from Stanford University. During his academic career he published more than 100 articles in the chemical physics of amorphous systems, especially polymers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He taught theoretical chemistry to students of chemistry and chemical engineering, especially Thermodynamics and Transport. He is the author of Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules (2007).

Patterson is the Historian of the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. He has published three previous books with Springer: A Prehistory of Polymer Science (2012), Polymer Science from 1935-1953: Consolidating the Paradigm (2014), and Chemistry in 17th Century New England (2020). He is the author of Paul John Flory: A Life of Science and Friends (2016). He has edited three books based on HIST symposia: Characters in Chemistry: A Celebration of the Humanity of Chemistry (2013), Preceptors in Chemistry (2018), and Modern Applications of Flory's "Statistical Mechanics of Chain Molecules" (2020). Patterson has also been associated with the Science History Institute as the Charles Price Fellow (2004), the Chief Bibliophile of the Bolton Society, Chair of the Heritage Council, and member of the Board of Directors.