With the discovery, between 1845 and 1847, of the principle of conservation of energy, the importance of energy for human life and progress was recognized, and scientists gave energy the romantic name of `The Queen of the Worldâ. Some twenty years later scientists discovered entropy, a measure of the dissipation of energy. This book outlines the history of the formulation of these two notions. Ideas and concepts that were crystallizing in the human mind for thousands of years as the result of observation, practical experience, and developments in technology are described, together with philosophers, scientists, engineers, and inventors who contributed to their formulation.
Contents Introduction THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD AND HER SHADOW 7
THE INVISIBLE QUEEN 15 The Man of Reason Showed in the Mirror of the Universe 15 From the Forces of Gods to the Forces of Souls in Every Object 20 Energy and 2000 Years of Walking About 28 “Give Me a Place to Stand and I Will Move the World!” 36 The Birth of the ‘Motive Power of Fire’ 41 In the Gloom of Religious and Political Cataclysms 44 Renaissance. Gravitational, Magnetic, and Electric Forces 50 Celestial and Terrestrial Forces 60 “Let Us Laugh, My Kepler, at the Stupidity of Men!” 64
TRIUMVIRATE 72
Falsely Directed Efforts Multiply Errors 72 “No Forces Are Lost for Any Type of Motion of Bodies” 82 Animate and Inanimate, Active and Passive Forces 87 Innate and Impressed Forces 90 The Advent of the ‘Motive Power of Fire’ 98 Forces of ‘Imponderable’ Matter 106 Destruam et aedificabo 119 The Principle of Conservation and Conversion of ‘Forces’ (Energy) 125
THE MULTIFACETED QUEEN 136
How Many Faces Does Her Majesty Have? 136 The Distribution of Roles 145 The Interconversion of Faces 148 A ‘Shagreen Leather’ for Humanity 150 From a Splinter to a reactor and Further 154 Concentration, Transformation Accumulation 161 “Equations of the Motion of Energy in Bodies” 163
THE QUEEN’S FORMIDABLE SHADOW 167
Shadows Start Growing at Noon 167 Entropy, Probability, and the Universe 174 Is the Demon an Outlaw? 180 How Much Entropy Is Contained in a Scientific Paper? 183 Love, Cybernetics, and Entropy 185 Give Me a Plate of Negentropy! 187 The Queen of the World and Her Shadow in Time and Space 190 Entropy and … the Construction Industry 193