Essay Review: Theories of Heat and the Rise of Physics: Joseph Fourier: The Man and the Physicist

Thackray Arnold . “Quantified chemistry—the Newtonian dream”, in Cardwell D. S. L. (ed.), John Dalton and the progress of science (Manchester, 1968), 92–108.

The word ‘physicist’ was coined by Whewell in 1840. He considered that a direct translation of the French word ‘physicien’ would lead to confusion with the established English word ‘physician’.

See his Physics and politics, the theme of which was an attempt (unsuccessful) on the part of the first editor of The economist to apply principles of natural selection to political theory.

Pacey A. J. and Fisher S. J. , “Daniel Bernoulli and the Vis-Viva of compressed air”, The British journal for the history of science, iii (1966–68), 388–92.

Ravetz J. R. , “Joseph Fourier and the nineteenth century revolution in mathematical physics”, Actes du IXe congrès international d'histoire des sciences (Barcelona, 1959), 574–8; idem, “Preliminary notes on the study of J. B. J. Fourier”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, nos 52–53 (1960), 247–51. Grattan-Guinness I. , in collaboration with Ravetz J. R. , Joseph Fourier, 1768–1830 (Cambridge, Mass., 1972). See also their joint article on Fourier in the Dictionary of scientific biography, v (New York, 1972), 93–99. Fourier Joseph , The analytical theory of heat (English translation of 1878, Dover reprint, New York, 1955).

Herivel John , Joseph Fourier, the man and the physicist (The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975).

To determine the temperature of a very hot body, say a molten metal, the experimenter waited until it had cooled down to a temperature that could be measured by a conventional thermometer, carefully noting the time interval, and then waited for a further, fixed, time before measuring the still lower temperature. The two temperature readings and the two time intervals enabled him to determine (in theory!) the unknown high temperature by extrapolation, and assuming that the law of cooling holds over the entire temperature range.

The proposed ‘absolute zeros’ of temperature were far below any recorded or attainable artificially at the time. It followed that a critic had only to object that if, as was quite plausible, the specific heat capacities of bodies fell with the temperature, the absolute zero might well turn out to be minus infinity! The possibility of a scale of temperature independent of the physical properties of any material substance may well have seemed absurd or self-contradictory to many men of science.

Oeuvres de Fourier, i (Paris, 1888–90), 106. See also, “Rémarques générales sur la temperature du globe terrestre et des espaces planétaires”, Annales de chimie et de physique, xxvii (1824), 136–7.

Ravetz , op. cit. (ref. 5).

See for instance Hart Ivor B. , Makers of science (Oxford, 1930), 233–47; Whittaker Edmund Sir , A history of theories of the aether and electricity (London, 1952), 90–93; Dictionary of scientific biography, x (New York, 1974), article “Ohm”, pp. 186–93.

I am grateful to my colleague, Mr J. O. Marsh, for calling my attention to this fact.

Williams L. Pearce , Michael Faraday (London, 1965), 164–8.

Joule's two laws state that the heat generated in any circuit by the passage of a current, i, is proportional to i²r, where r is the Ohmic resistance; and secondly, the mechanical work done by an electro-motor is proportional to ei, where e is the electro-motive force.

On p. 165 the bar in question should have side 2l and not l as stated. (The account given by Grattan-Guinness is much clearer at this point.) Ingen Housz is referred to idiosyncratically and without explanation as Ingenhouss. Richmann and Krafft appear uncorrected in a quotation as Rickmann and Kraft. Daniel Bernoulli becomes David Bernoulli on p. 217. The Bourgain swamps, said on p. 80 to cover twenty million acres, are reduced to a more reasonable nineteenth thousand acres on p. 327. There are a number of misprints and pp. 322–7 and p. 331 are not numbered.

Fourier , op. cit. (ref. 5), 8.

ibid., 131.

Even the nineteenth century debate about the age of the earth in which the leading disputants were Huxley, using Darwin's scientific theory, and Kelvin, relying on Fourier, has now sunk to the level of a minor Victorian episode, overshadowed by the much more impressive conflict between Huxley and the bishops.