This page contains information about a host of major figures in the history of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics (TSM).
Below boxes are in order of birthdate and contain: links to works by the author that are in the Lehigh Library collections; biographical links and other background resources; and comments related to the narrative provided in the section of this guide about "Approaches to the History of TSM."
This is just a sampler of relevant works in the Lehigh collection. Search the online catalog for many other works. Sorting your search results by "date ascending" can help you locate older materials.
Many figures in the complex history of TSM are missing from below, given limitations of time and space, but consult the resources linked on this guide for books and articles that can help immerse you in the literature if you get interested in this fascinating history.
For one timeline, see Dateline for Thermodynamics (Northwestern University.)
WORK IN LEHIGH COLLECTIONS
The Atomists : Leucippus and Democritus : fragments /Other Authors: Taylor, C. C. W., (Translator)Format: eBook. Published: Toronto, [Ontario] ; Buffalo, [New York] ; London, [England] : University of Toronto Press, 1999.
RELATED RESOURCES
Biography from Access Science
==
Berryman. Democritus.
The Galileo Project Atomism
Rees. Atomism and 'subtlety' in Francis Bacon's philosophy. Annals of Science, 37 (1980), pp. 549-571.505.2 A613 in FM Library.
Simpson. Francis Bacon (1561—1626).
Klein Francis Bacon.
Ariew Descartes Among the Scholastics. (p. 138) comments on Bacon. On that page, "Paracelsian" is presumably a reference to Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (1493–1541). See reference to Paracelsus in this discussion of van Helmont,who is claimed to be the originator of the term "gas". See also the reference here to Paracelsus and van Helmont in John Read, From Alchemy to Chemistry.
Meinel Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism: Theory, Epistemology, and the Insufficiency of Experiment.
== Ariew Descartes Among the Scholastics, pp. 138-139:
Meinel Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism: Theory, Epistemology, and the Insufficiency of Experiment. See bibliography in fn. 21.
From Luthy Atomism, Lynceus, and the Fate of Seventeenth-Century Microscopy
(p. 15) Although the allure of microscopy increased initially with the same slowness as the appeal of corpuscularian concepts of matter, the link between the two was obvious to all that used the new instrument... The title-page of Hooke's Micrographia of 1665, a book with clear corpuscularian underpinnings, was adorned with a Horatian couplet which said: You may not be able, with your eyes, to see as far as Lynceus, Yet you would not on that account scorn to anoint them, if sore. The ointment Hooke had in mind was, of course, again the microscope.
See page 7 for a discussion of the "Greek hero" Lynceus.
Bennett The social history of the microscope
Meinel Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism: Theory, Epistemology, and the Insufficiency of Experiment. Mentions Micrographia in passing.
Fenby Heat: Its measurement from Galileo to Lavoiser. "Newton, in his Opticks, believed that heat may be caused by a 'vibrating motion' of the constituent parts of bodies."
Schofield Atomism from Newton to Dalton
Shapiro Newton's optics and atomism
Danielis Bernoulli ... Hydrodynamica, sive De viribus et motibus fluidorum commentarii. Opus academicum ab auctore, dum Petropoli ageret, congestum. [Location: Special Collections] Argentorati, sumptibus J. R. Dulseckeri, 1738.
Cercignani, The Rise of Statistical Mechanics, pp. 26-27.
Sklar.Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics
Biography.from Access Science
== Neave, W.W.J. Joseph Black's Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry.
Joshua C. Gregory. "An Aspect of the History of Atomism." Science Progress in the Twentieth Century (1919-1933) Vol. 22, No. 86 (Oct. 1927), pp. 293-304.
check if following is from immediately above, p. 297
"The intrusion of incipient atomism upon disbelieving preconceptions in the earlier period was represented in the later by a combination of corpuscular explanations and anti-atomistic prejudice. Dr. Joseph Black (1728-99) delivered expositions in terms of atoms and attractions : corpuscular mechanisms were essential, or almost essential, to conceptual grip. He warned students that " attraction " was metaphorical in chemistry, and chemists that attention was more wisely directed to " the external phenomena " than to speculation about " the ultimate internal action." A chemical phenomenon, Black always insisted, was only explicable in the sense of establishing it as an instance of a more general behav"
Fowler. Early Attempts to Understand Heat: Is It a Fluid, or What?
Biography Access Science "At the time he wrote Reflections, Carnot was a believer in the caloric theory of heat, which held that heat is a form of fluid. But this misconception of the nature of heat does not invalidate his conclusions."
Callendar."The Caloric Theory of Heat and Carnot's Principle."
Cercignani, The Rise of Statistical Mechanics, pp. 27-28, 30.
Sklar.[use control f to find references]
WORK IN LEHIGH COLLECTION
Silliman.William Thomson: Smoke Rings and Nineteenth-Century Atomism
Lomonaco The Modern Legacies of Thomson's Atomic Vortex Theory in Classical Electrodynamics
Lehrbuch der Thermostatik [Location: LMC] Waals, J. D. van der Leipzig, J. A. Barth, 1927-
BIography from Access Science
Klein.The historical origins of the Van der Waals equation
Sklar.Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics use control f to find references to Van der Waals
The collected works of J. Willard Gibbs ...[Location: Fairchild - 7th Floor - North] New York [etc.] Longmans, Green and Co., 1928.
Fleck Atomism in Late Nineteenth-Century Physical Chemistry
Sklar.Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics [use control f to find references to Gibbs]
Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen [Location: LMC] Leipzig, J.A. Barth, 1882-95.
Populäre Schriften [Location: LMC] Leipzig, Barth, 1925.
Vorlesungen über Gastheorie [Location: LMC] Leipzig, J. A. Barth, 1896-98.
Sklar. Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics [use control f to find references]
Uffink. Boltzmann’s Work in Statistical Physics
Psillos 1.4 Boltzmann Against Historical Pessimism, in Realism and Theory Change in Science
Les *el*ements de la physique, [Location: LMC] Paris, Albin Michel [1929] Les atomes [Location: LMC] [Paris] : F. Alcan, 1914 [c1913]
Chalmers.Atomism from the 17th to the 20th Century [use control f to find references to Perrin]
Newburgh Einstein, Perrin, and the reality of atoms: 1905 revisited