Lin-Shu Wang - A Treatise of Heat and Energy

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Heat and work flow for a Carnot cycle, which is an example of extracting from the heat sink reservoir heat of the amount, , (that would have been lost in a spontaneous heat transfer process) for the production of work,W= .

Thermodynamic understanding of heat and energy is based on the mechanical theory of heat (MTH), which resulted from the synthesis, by Kelvin and Clausius, of Carnots theory of heat and the MayerJoule principle. Yet, there are no good definitions for heat or energy in the current literature on thermodynamics. It is noted that the advent of the entropy principle created the scientific stream of thermodynamics (a new stream branched off from its original source, the engineering stream) and led to, in quick succession, the successful formulation of equilibrium thermodynamics. Here, I make the case that the impression of the KelvinClausius synthesis success is formed from its success in producing a coherent system of equilibrium thermodynamics, not in resulting in a coherent system of engineering stream of thermodynamicsthe failure of which is reflected in the fact that engineering thermodynamics cannot even talk about heat and energy without self-contradictions as well as fail to provide students of thermodynamics real grasp on reversibility. This disquisitionessay makes the case that the uneven achievement of Joule, Kelvin, and Clausius is because they made the classic error of equating correlation between heat and work to causality between heat and work, and, as a result, prevented the (later) formulation of the entropy principle from realizing its full power. While this error has been pointed out in a number of papers, the authors of those papers advocated, for removing the error, a return to Carnots theory as a caloric theory of heat. That was clearly a mistake: it is argued here that Carnots theory is a relational theory of heat not an ontological theory and, in fact, it can be made to incorporate with, ontologically, either the caloric theory or MTH. This disquisition essay presents a relational, i.e., predicative, theory of heat embracing fully MTHs ontology for an updated understanding of heat, spontaneous energy conversion, and reversible-like processes.