Scoville scale Scoville scale The Scoville scale is a measurement of the pungency (spiciness or "heat") of chili peppers and other spicy foods, as recorded in Scoville Heat Units (SHU) based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, among which capsaicin is the predominant component. The scale is named after its creator, American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, whose 1912 method is known as the Scoville organoleptic test. In the 21st century, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is used to quantify the capsaicinoid content as an indicator of pungency. The most expedient method for estimating SHU is a subjective assessment derived from the capsaicinoid sensitivity by people
Heat engine This is because "any" transfer of heat between two bodies at differing temperatures is irreversible, and therefore the Carnot efficiency expression only applies in the infinitesimal limit. The major problem with that is that the object of most heat engines is to output some sort of power, and infinitesimal power is usually not what is being sought. A different measure of ideal heat engine efficiency is given by considerations of endoreversible thermodynamics, where the cycle is identical to the Carnot cycle except in that the two processes of heat transfer are "not" reversible (Callen 1985): This model does a better