Developing an Historical Perspective of the Modern Heat Theory In the WEST water monitoring program, landowners participate in discussions about natural laws that govern a watershed and how the heat laws can be used to design a case study . A review of the history of the heat theory provides a foundation to understand the daily fluctuations of stream temperatures that would be recorded by submersible thermisters. Humans often describe heat as a substance that flows into our bodies creating a sense of hotness and out of our bodies creating a sense of coldness (Motz and Weaver, 1991). This explanation was also used by Aristotle and the Greeks in 300 BC and was the accepted heat theory for hundreds of years, but the idea gave way when Fahrenheit invented an instrument that used mercury sealed inside a bulb with a scale that measured the freezing point and boiling points of water. In the late 1750s Joseph Black baked equal quantities of mercury and water in an oven and showed that mercury was hotter than the water after being heated by the same oven for the same amount of time which created a theory: heat consists of a caloric fluid that is invisible, weightless, and indestructible (Guillen 1995). Joule for whom scientific research was a matter of measurement, not speculation (von Baeyer 1999) discovered the law of conservation of energy and in the mid 1800s Rudolph Clausius described the heat theory using a mathematical foundation and established the Laws of Thermodynamics. Today we accept the idea that humans are not reliable thermometers (Bohren 1998) and we now determine how hot or cold something is using instruments. The Laws of Thermodynamics allow us to explain that when two different materials are brought into thermal contact with each other, they reach thermal equilibrium, but do not experience the same changes in temperature because of their different specific heats and masses. The heat lost by the hotter object is equal to the heat gained by the colder object ( Kirkpatrick, and Wheeler 1995). Understanding how we must use the physical laws and apply them while we investigate water temperature issues, the WEST monitoring then proceeds to the stream to begin the process of collecting temperature, sediment, and riparian vegetation measurements. The Laws of Thermodynamics ... The Scientific Method of Sampling & Monitoring Techniques References Bohren, C.F. 1998. Atmospheric Thermodynamics. Oxford University Press.
New York, NY. Kirkpatrick, L. D. and G.F. Wheeler. 1995. Physics a world view. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Orlando, FL. Motz, L. and J. H. Weaver. 1991. The story of Physics. Plenum Press. New York. von Baeyer, Hans C. 1999. Warmth disperses and time passes: the history of heat. The Modern Library. NY. |