The term "power" meaning rate of energy transfer (incl. "generation",
"usage", etc.) likely did not become important until the Industrial
Revolution. The Brits probably would trace the term back to Isaac
Wattever his name is.
Jim
Pat Naughtin wrote:
Thanks Phil,
I am aware that Isaac Newton had a concept of the difference between
energy and power, but from my reading of his work he did not have the
words to express this clearly. That's why I think that the distinction
(between energy and power) did not become clear until about 1800.
Cheers,
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On 2010/06/07, at 20:49 , Phil Hall wrote:
Dear Pat
Re:
As far as I know power and energy were clearly distinguished as two
quite separate and distinct physical realities late in the 1700s or
early in the 1800s (I would like to have an exact date but this is
the best I can do at present).
I am inclined to think that it must go back a bit earlier than that,
at least to a point where the principal of conservation of energy or
momentum was established. Isaac Newton effectively did that in his
third law of motion (popularly known as "action and reaction are equal
and opposite") in 1687. In that context power is a measure of the rate
at which energy is converted from one form to another.
I may be wrong but I find it hard to imagine Newton and his
contemporaries not having some idea that energy is a quantifiable
property of matter according to its state (Einstein later showed that
matter and energy are interchangeable) and the concept of power as we
now know it.
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