The Road to Entropy – Sadi Carnot’s use of analogy to create his “flawed” masterpiece (video)

The commercialization of the high-pressure steam engines by the Cornish Engineers of Britain inspired Sadi Carnot, a French military engineer, to analyze these engines and seek the theories to guide their improvement. If you’re interested in doing a deep dive into Sadi Carnot’s work, here are two excellent references. I go into much more depthContinue reading “The Road to Entropy – Sadi Carnot’s use of analogy to create his “flawed” masterpiece (video)”

The Road to Entropy – Phil Hosken on Richard Trevithick and the invention of the high-pressure steam engine (video)

As shared in my previous post (here), the historical road to entropy started with Denis Papin’s development of the piston-in-cylinder assembly and Thomas Newcomen’s and James Watt’s subsequent efforts to commercialize and continuously improve fire engines or atmospheric engines built around this assembly. Steam at atmospheric pressure was employed in these engines, not as aContinue reading “The Road to Entropy – Phil Hosken on Richard Trevithick and the invention of the high-pressure steam engine (video)”

The Road to Entropy – The Newcomen and Watt “Steam” Engines (videos)

The road to entropy began with the 18th century development of the “steam” engine by Thomas Newcomen and James Watt. But steam was not the driving force in these engines. So what was? And what was the purpose of the steam? Check out this video for the answers: Note the shout-out in the video toContinue reading “The Road to Entropy – The Newcomen and Watt “Steam” Engines (videos)”