HERAPATH, JOHN - THE KINETIC THEORY OF GASES.

A Mathematical Inquiry into the Causes, Laws, and principal Phaenomena of heat, Gases, Gravitation, &c. (3 Parts).

London, Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1821.

Contemp. Hcalf. Minor scratches to spine. In: "Annals of Philosophy; or, Magazine of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Mechanics, Natural History... By Thomas Thomson.", New series Vol. I. VIII,479 pp. a. 7 engraved plates. (Entire volumes offered). Herapath's papers: pp. 273-293, 340-351 a. 401-416.

First printing of these contoversial papers where Herapath revived the kinetic theory of gases. His theory was more or less neglected by the scientific community at his time. The kinetic theory remained dormant and forgotten after Euler's and Bernouilli's work "until 1816, when Herapath proposed a theory which is essential Bernoulli's. Unfortunately he chose to define temperature as being proportional to the momentum rather than the kinetic energy of molecules. Herapath was the first to show, more or less, that kinetic theory can provide simple explanations for the changes of state, diffusion, and the propagation of sound."(Trousdell "Essayas in the History of Mechanics", pp. 283 ff.).

Order-nr.: 59163