"One of the great rarities in the history of science"

CARNOT, Nicolas Leonard Sadi.

Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres a développer cette puissance.

Paris: Chez Bachelier Libraire, 1824.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Item #001671

[4], 118 pp., half title, 1 folding engraved plate. Contemporary half calf with gilt spine. Little browning to upper outer corner of first few leaves, very minor dampstaining to first blank and half title, closed tear to margin of title-page, right-hand margin of folding plate little soiled and frayed. A fine copy, internally bright and clean. ----

Dibner 155; PMM 285, Norman 404; Honeyman 601; Darmstaedter 354 - FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE GREAT RARITIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE. Although this was the author's only work -- his life being cut short by scarlet fever -- in it he anticipates both the first and second law of thermodynamics. Carnot's work was born out of the need to improve the new two-cylinder compound steam engine developed in the first part of the century. Instead of focusing on the properties of steam, as others had done, Carnot proposed a general theory of heat as a motive force. As PMM notes: "the book was essentially an attempt to calculate the mechanical equivalent of heat." Carnot's work was to profoundly influence Helmholtz and Joule and led directly to the enunciation of the theory of the conservation of energy by Helmholtz. The second law of thermodynamics is also implicit in Carnot's treatise... Carnot's... researches led also to the absolute scale of temperature" (PMM). Only 600 copies of the work were printed.

Sold