Sadi Carnot and the Cagnard Engine

Author(s): E. Mendoza
Source: Isis, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Jun., 1963), pp. 262-263
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/228544 .
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262 E. MENDOZA

just what that author meant. And I have This passage does not appear in the
added my own proposition (i. e., the one I
sent your Reverence a few days ago), which P version. And if P is, in fact, the later
I now set forth openly and without any equi-version, the omission of the passage is
vocation. a tacit disclaimer of the proposition in
The reference is to the proposition question (Resolutio, pref., p. [15]) that
that homogeneous bodies of the same " two bodies of the same form and the
same substance, whether equal or un-
shape fall with the same speed in a
given medium (cf. Resolutio, pref., pp. equal, will move [in natural motion]
[15-17]). an equal distance in an equal time in
If my analysis is correct, the com- the same medium."
position of the dedicatory epistle to The P version deals only by implica-
the Resolutio came only a short time tion with the problem of the resistance
before the dedication in the V edition of the medium
of the Demonstratio. And in the text A more apart from buoyancy.
explicit (though hardly satis-
proper of V (p. [3]), Benedetti writes: factory) account is given in the Dis-
" For in proposing to cite the passages where the entire discussion
referred to above, in which Aristotle putationes,
of free fall ends with a chapter (18)
was in error, it seemed to me appropri- entitled "how to determine the ratio
ate at this time briefly to set forth again of the
the proposition I discovered in Septem- speeds of two similar, homogene-
ber, 1552 and later announced in 1553 ous, unequal bodies." For our present
to the Most Reverend de Guzman. purpose I merely point out that the
Thus everything might be in order and speeds are not here held (as they are
have a clearer explanation." (Cf. Reso- in the Resolutio and the V version of
lutio, pref., p. [11].) the Demonstratio) to be equal.

SADI CARNOT AND THE CAGNARD ENGINE

*
By E. Mendoza

In the December 1961 issue of this
journal Professor Thomas S. Kuhn
drew attention to the air engine in-
vented by Cagnard and examined by
Lazare Carnot in 1809. Prof. Kuhn
speculated about the possible connec-
tion between this mechanism and Sadi
Carnot's ideas on heat engines. It does
in fact seem highly probable that this
machine did exert a real influence on
early thermodynamics, if not on Sadi
Carnot directly, then very probably on
his friend Nicolas Clement.
Clement was Professor at the Con-
servatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris,
where Sadi Carnot attended the public
lectures on applied chemistry given by
him. The notes taken by a student dur-
ing several of the sessions, from 1824
onwards, have been preserved 1 and in
* The University, Manchester.
1 Chimie appliquee aux Arts--Journal du
Cours 1825-26 par J.-M. Baudot in the Library
of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. See
one of these Sadi Carnot's presence at
the lectures on heat engines is specifi-
cally mentioned. Sadi's brother Hippo-
lyte recorded that, certainly in the
period following the writing of the Re-
flexions sur la puissance motrice du feu,
Sadi and Clement were good friends.
A footnote in the Reflexions,2 however,
implies that they had discussions to-
gether before that.
Desormes' and Clement's Memoire
sur la Theorie des Machines a feu was
read before the Acade'mie des Sciences
on 16 and 23 August 1819. An exten-
sive extract was published soon after 3
and a more detailed version was given
in Clement's lectures. Three topics
were treated. The first was the experi-
my " Contributions to the Study of Sadi Carnot
and his work" in Arch. Int. Hist. Sci., 12, 377.
2 Page 98 of the facsimile edition
(Paris:
Blanchard, 1953).
3 Bulletin des sciences par la Societe
philo-
matique de Paris, p. 115 (1819).

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 A STRANGE MISTRANSLATION IN THE PRINCIPIA 263

mental law that the chaleur constitu- ered in any real engine. But the agent
ante - in modern terms the enthalpy - driving Cagnard's engine was just a
of steam is independent of pressure, bubble rising more or less adiabatically
that is of the boiling temperature. The through warm water and giving up its
third was the importance of using steam energy at the top. It is reasonable to
expansively (the principle of the connect Clement's ideas with this en-
machine ai detente). Both these topics gine and to note that he regarded it as
were given great prominence by Carnot so simple in its action as to be a pro-
in the Reflexions; the law of constancy totype for all engines.
of the chaleur constituante was the In contrast to the prominence given
basis of many computations, while to the other topics treated in Clement's
Clement's exposition of expansive work- paper, this calculation was not men-
ing (" veritable fondement de la tioned in the Reflexions and neither
thedorie des machines a vapeur") was was the engine. These omissions are
praised. But it is the second topic not surprising. Carnot was contemptu-
which is of interest here: this was the ous of calculations which dealt only
method of calculating the motive power with the outward stroke of an engine,
which could be extracted from a given instead of a complete cycle.4 His desi-
amount of heat. A bubble of gas was derata for an air engine were that the
imagined to be introduced by some gas should be used at high pressure and
means at the bottom of a tall cylinder that a large temperature difference
of water at a given temperature; the should be utilized. Cagnard's engine did
bubble rose adiabatically and did ex- neither of these things. In any case,
ternal work at the surface of the liquid. Lazare Carnot's observation, that the
Clement assumed that the same amount power output from the wheel was five
of work could be extracted whatever times the power needed to drive the
the mechanism, a steam engine for ex- compressor (the Archimedean screw),
ample. He therefore based his compu- is suspect.
tation on the limits of pressure likely But if Clement's ideas gained any pre-
to be encountered in a steam engine, cision from his thinking about the ac-
namely five atmospheres and the va- tion of Cagnard's engine, then this
pour pressure of cold water. This machine deserves to be remembered.
method of calculation has always ap- 4 See the remark on Petit's calculations on
peared obscure to me, quite divorced the outward stroke of a piston, Rdflexions,
from conditions likely to be encount- p. 86.

A STRANGE MISTRANSLATION IN THE PRINCIPIA

By A. Rupert Hall and James A. Ruffner *

Proposition XLI of Book III of the
Principia is virtually a short monograph
on cometary astronomy, considered
physically as well as mathematically.
In the long paragraph in which New-
ton considers explanations of the tails
of comets there occurs, in the standard
* Indiana
University. Mr. Ruffner is com-
pleting a thesis on Newton's study of comets.
English translation,1 the curious ex-
pression: ". . . if the tail was due to
the crumbling of the celestial matter,
and did deviate from the opposition of
the sun, according to the figure of the
1 Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Prin-
ciples . . . (etc.) Translated into English by
Andrew Motte in 1729. The translation re-
vised (etc.), by Florian Cajori (Berkeley,
1946), p. 524.

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