section_path: History/Classical thermodynamics
section_name: Classical thermodynamics
paragraph_text: Classical thermodynamics
  
  The modern understanding of heat is often partly attributed to Thompson 's 1798 mechanical theory of heat (An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Source of the Heat which is Excited by Friction), postulating a mechanical equivalent of heat.A collaboration between Nicolas Clément and Sadi Carnot (Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire) in the 1820s had some related thinking along similar lines. In 1842, Julius Robert Mayer frictionally generated heat in paper pulp and measured the temperature rise. In 1845, Joule published a paper entitled The Mechanical Equivalent of Heat, in which he specified a numerical value for the amount of mechanical work required to "produce a unit of heat", based on heat production by friction in the passage of electricity through a resistor and in the rotation of a paddle in a vat of water. The theory of classical thermodynamics matured in the 1850s to 1860s.