English

Comment on: "Sadi Carnot on Carnot's theorem"

History and Philosophy of Physics 2007-05-23 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

Carnot established in 1824 that the efficiency ηC\eta_{C} of reversible engines operating between a hot bath at absolute temperature ThotT_{hot} and a cold bath at temperature TcoldT_{cold} is equal to 1Tcold/Thot1-T_{cold}/T_{hot}. Carnot particularly considered air as a working fluid and small bath-temperature differences. Plugging into Carnot's expression modern experimental values, exact agreement with modern Thermodynamics is found. However, in a recently published paper ["Sadi Carnot on Carnot's theorem", \textit{Am. J. Phys.} \textbf{70}(1), 42-47, 2002], Guemez and others consider a "modified cycle" involving two isobars that they mistakenly attribute to Carnot. They calculate an efficiency considerably lower than ηC\eta_{C} and suggest that Carnot made compensating errors. Our contention is that the Carnot theory is, to the contrary, perfectly accurate.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0307104,
  title  = {Comment on: "Sadi Carnot on Carnot's theorem"},
  author = {Jacques Arnaud and Laurent Chusseau and Fabrice Philippe},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0307104},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Submitted to American Journal of Physics