Ministry of Defence Main Building (United Kingdom) each and cost £12,600. Similar figures representing "air" and "fire" were intended to be installed at the south end of the building, however these were never constructed. During the 1950s, building staff nicknamed the statues "Mr and Mrs Parkinson", after Cyril Northcote Parkinson, the Board of Trade civil servant who devised Parkinson's Law which states "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". More recently MOD staff refer to the statues as the "two fat ladies". The badge of the RAF is carved into stone columns either side of the southern entrance to the building, reflecting
Principle of maximum work Principle of maximum work In the history of science, the principle of maximum work was a postulate concerning the relationship between chemical reactions, heat evolution, and the potential work produced there from. The principle was developed in approximate form in 1875 by French chemist Marcellin Berthelot, in the field of thermochemistry, and then later in 1876 by American mathematical physicist Willard Gibbs, in the field of thermodynamics, in a more accurate form. Berthelot's version was essentially: "every pure chemical reaction is accompanied by evolution of heat." (and that this yields the maximum amount of work). The effects of irreversibility, however,