Talk:Mechanical equivalent of heat

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[edit] Priority

The sentance which starts with "However, in 1848, Mayer had first had sight of Joule's papers..." is very confusing. Both because of the double "had" and also because it isn't clear (to me) what "first sight" is supposed to imply.

[edit] Rumford

I have to point out that the priority should be credit to Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) for his work "An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Source of the Heat which is Excited by Friction" where he suggested that heat is a form of motion. This work was published in 1798 more them 40 years before Joule and Mayer's works.

Although Mayer and Joule are to be credit as the first ones to find the proportional relation between the Unity of mechanical work (now called Joule) and the unity of heat (calorie), they are certain not the first ones to propose the concept equivalence.