Talk:History of thermodynamics

message: In c.350 BC, Aristotle proclaims, in opposition to Leucippus, the dictum horror vacui or “nature abhors a vacuum”.
"dictum horror vacui" is Latin, not Greek. I doubt that Aristotle ever proclaimed anything in Latin, let alone even heard of the language.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.194.150.50 (talk) 02:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aristotle spoke Greek 

message: Yes - History should have its separate article. PAR 06:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course. Karol 17:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creation 

message: Yeah, this article needs some more work. I moved one image from thermodynamics of the engine (kind of historical) and formatted things a bit. Karol 07:35, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I added in the "short history of thermodynamics", cleaned the intro, and put some good history external links in.  It's starting to feel tighter.  Later: --Sadi Carnot 16:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More work 

message: "Parmenides uses verbal reasoning to postulate that a void, essentially what is now known as a vacuum, in nature could not occur. This statement was disproved conclusively, approximately two-thousand years later, when Otto von Guericke built a vacuum pump,"
This is conjecture (influenced by modern concepts) regarding the meaning of an ancient text, whose real meaning has been lost to us. 
Secondly, a vacuum is not a void but the absence of ponderable matter in space. Space in the absence of matter has properties, is an ether not a void/nothingness/non-existence. To suggest that Parmenides was describing such is to impose a modern world-view on his text. Its invention.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.19.180 (talk) 21:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to add that the clarification of "partial vacuum" in the context of the Mercury barometer may be inaccurate. Is the "empty" space in the tube above the liquid mercury actually a vacuum? My initial thought (based on my low-level chemistry background) is that, in fact, a small amount of evaporation occurs, and probably relatively easily in the otherwise-empty space (lower pressure inside the tube). In the presence of this mercurial vapor, can it really be said that there exists a vacuum in the tube? My opinion: a partial vacuum perhaps, but not a "true" vacuum. Comment is invited from an expert on the subject. Thanks! Sabin4232 (talk) 06:48, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parmenides 

message: Also you mentioned that Avicenna invented the first air thermometer, but thats not quiet the whole story. Ctesibius, Heron, and Philo were all aware of the elasticity of air and they knew that when heated it expanded and vice versa and they in fact built several mechanisms demonstrating this principle, particularly in Heron's Pneumatica. In reality Avic. would have had access and knowledge of these works so he in fact just used their theories and the devices they built to measure temperature and some sources claim in fact that they did built an air thermometer themselves http://www.enotes.com/history-fact-finder/science-invention/who-invented-thermometer. whether they built an air thermometer is in no doubt, its just that they most likely didnt use to measure temperature, but never the less their ideas and inventions are crucial Avic. just used what they made to gauge temp. difference. I thought id let you know so you alter to include those ideas, you know before i actually do it for you soooooo. Tomasz Prochownik (talk) 06:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I included the Arabic contributions to the prehistory of thermodynamics for the same reason you choose to include the Greek contributions. Why did you remove Al-Farabi despite the fact that his experiments are clearly described in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy source? I sense double-standards coming from you... How is Al-Farabi's experiments on the vacuum any less relevant than Aristotle's theory on the void? The Greek contributions are also irrelevant to the prehistory of thermodynamics according to your own twisted logic. Jagged 85 (talk) 06:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

text: As for the Arabic chemists, of course they didn't contribute to thermodynamics, but keep in mind that the section I added them to is called Transition from alchemy to chemistry. Since the Arabic chemists did indeed play an important role in the transition from alchemy to chemistry, it should be obvious why they should be included in that particular section of the article. Jagged 85 (talk) 07:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes, Al-Farabi's conclusion was not correct, but neither was Aristotle's claim. The fact is that Al-Farabi's experiments added legitimacy to Aristotle's claim. Otherwise, it would be completely incorrect to suggest that Aristotle's claim regarding the void was never supported by any experiments. Jagged 85 (talk) 00:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Can't you make your responses any shorter? I really can't be bothered anymore to read such large blocks of text (without any paragraphs) that just seems to be repeating the same things. Again I sense double-standards from you, as you yourself have not yet cited any sources at all connecting the Greeks to thermodynamics. Again, I don't see how the Arabic work on heat and vacuum is any less relevant than the Greek work on those topics. And when did I ever claim Al-Farabi had any influence on Otto von Guericke? As for the chemistry section, I've renamed it to Transition from chemistry to thermochemistry to avoid confusion. Jagged 85 (talk) 08:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I've directly quoted what Baydawi stated. How much clearer can you get than "heat may occur through motion-change" (in Baydawi's own words)? If you did read the source I've cited, then it's quite clear he did consider this as one of two possibilities, and there is nothing in the next paragraph to suggest that he is trying to refute the idea, but he is simply trying to explain how heavenly spheres are not receptive to heat. In fact, he states in the preceding paragraph that "It is most likely that natural heat is different from the heat of fire, and likewise, [from] the heat that emanates from the heavenly bodies." In other words, he thought that the heavenly bodies have their own properties. I don't see how you somehow managed to interpret it as some kind of refutation against heat from motion-change, but it seems you've misread the source. Jagged 85 (talk) 05:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

text: And so what if he didn't say motion-change of atoms or microscopic objects? The 13th century is too early for someone to be saying something like that. At least his suggestion of heat caused by motion change is an improvement over what his predecessors said, and that fact alone makes it notable enough to be mentioned. The reference I provided for Baydawi is clearly a reliable source. Again, you're showing double-standards by expecting me to provide cross-references when you yourself have not provided any references at all for any of the other views mentioned on this page. You're hypocrisy is just mind-boggling. And for your information, many physicists and scientists during the Middle Ages were often theologians as well, not that it makes a difference to me whatever you want to call him. Jagged 85 (talk) 13:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: history

message: To all those who wish to contribute to the ancient and middle ages section of this page i think there should be more attention being paid ideas on heat and temperature and less on the vacuum.  I think the whole idea that thermodynamics begins with the invention of the vacuum is way of course.  I have consulted several sources on the history of thermodynamics and none of them state that thermodynamics begins with the vacuum pump.  The vacuum pump gets scarcely any mention at all, and i think the general consensus from the books and internet sources is that thermo. begins with the need to make more efficient steam engines.  The part were it says a vacuum is precursor to a steam engine is totally of the mark.  The ancient and middle ages section should focus more on things like the fact that Heron and others were aware of the elasticity of air and in fact thought air was composed of particles.  Much more attention should be paid to things that are related to heat, temp. and so forth rather then the vacuum, which is not even as important as a thermometer in thermo.  Tomasz Prochownik (talk) 06:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes to history sections

message: has proposed that the separate article Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory be dropped, and its content merged to here.
I would oppose such a merger, because it seems to me that
* The relationship between entropy in information theory and entropy in thermodynamics is an important current topic, of current interest and current disagreement, important in a full current understanding of thermodynamics.  It deserves a full discussion of current perceptions of the relationship, not just as a topic in a general history.  That is best done in its own article  (which was created because the current status of the topic kept on being brought up and disputed in a number of other current articles).
* The length of treatment that can be afforded in an article specialised to this one issue would be out of place and unbalance this article if it was all brought over here.
Better IMO would be mentions here of the development of the statistical and latterly informational understanding of thermodynamics, but with the detail handed off to the specialist article as now, per WP:Summary style.  Jheald (talk) 09:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Ongoing discussion is probably best centralised at Talk:Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory#Proposed merger. Jheald (talk) 09:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger 

message: Earthquake thermodynamics - 2000
Drug-receptor thermodynamics - 2001
Pharmaceutical systems thermodynamics – 2002
Are these really the historical dates a "field" was "founded"? Or is it more a matter of patenting "a device for using the internet to make payments for X"?
178.38.146.163 (talk) 11:27, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are we sure of these fields 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070701173528/http://www.nt.ntnu.no/users/haugwarb/Presentations/History%20of%20Thermodynamics/ to http://www.nt.ntnu.no/users/haugwarb/Presentations/History%20of%20Thermodynamics/
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Dear fellow Wikipedians,
I have divided the History section into smaller parts, put the subsections in chronological order, and added lots of subheadings. I have also duplicated most of the sections "Kinetic theory", "Entropy and the second law", "Heat transfer", "Absolute zero" into the "History" section, also in chronological order. Unfortunately, some of the new subsections are very small, just 1-2 sentences. Hopefully someone will expand them. 
I have left the four sections above intact, for many would prefer their content to stay together rather being split up into fragments, albeit chronological. I don't want to make it unnecessarily difficult to restore the page to the way it was. But as long as duplicates of text within the article exist, it is almost inevitable that some edits will be made in the original paragraph, and other edits in its duplicate (duplicated version). In fact, I have already began editing the duplicates.
My hope is that a senior editor moves the relevant parts of the above mentioned "Heat transfer" section (for example) to a/the History section of the "Heat transfer" main article, or else deletes the duplicates, the sooner the better. (You will understand that I'm not eager to undo hours worth of my own edits.) The edits that after today have been done in the to-be-deleted original or duplicated paragraphs will be lost.
Please be informed. The Cosmic Ocean (talk) 07:12, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: No one has objected, and no edits seem to have been made in the four sections, so I'm removing them. It's a lot of text, but it has all been duplicated piecemeal in the history sections, The Cosmic Ocean (Please feel free to modify or undo any of my edits as deemed appropriate.) 19:55, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicated text within the article 

message: Changed two Descartes quotes inside the text into blockquotes for increased clarity. On the other hand they interrupt the flow of the text and they are both found in their main articles. Feel free to put them back into the running text if deemed better. The Cosmic Ocean (talk) 03:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Descartes blockquotes 

message: Dear fellow Wikipedians,
With due respect for the hard work of whoever wrote this subsection, I have taken the liberty of removing the "Atmospheric pressure replaces "vacuum-abhorrence"". It seems to me this text is better suited for—and well covered in—pages Evangelista Torricelli, Galileo Galilei#Water pump, Barometer#History, and Vacuum pump#History. The Cosmic Ocean (Please feel free to modify or undo any of my edits as deemed appropriate.) 18:12, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed "Atmospheric pressure replaces "vacuum-abhorrence""