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At the time, Joule’s “great discovery” presented Thomson with an uncomfortable dilemma. Over the previous two years, he’d fallen in love with Sadi Carnot’s elegant analysis of the way an unchanging amount of caloric produces work as it flows from a hot furnace to a cold sink. Yet, here was this unassuming Mancunian claiming caloric did not exist. The easy option, taken by many others in the room, would have been to dismiss Joule’s evidence—much of it was based, after all, on minuscule temperature increases discernible only on novel thermometers. William Thomson, however, possessed remarkable scientific intuition. In his mind, Carnot’s theory and Joule’s experiments both rang true despite appearing incompatible. Could they both be right? If so, how?
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Paul Sen (Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe)