Page 120 - Essentials of physical chemistry

82 Essentials of Physical Chemistry

FIGURE 5.1 Nicholas L eonard Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) was a French physicist and military engineer who
published the ‘‘Carnot cycle’’ in 1824. At an early age he attended the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris where there
was a very distinguished faculty, the list reads like the very foundations of modern science (Claude-Louis
Navier, Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, Sim eon Denis Poisson, and Andre-Marie
Ampere). Carnot died in a cholera epidemic when he was only 36. (Boilly lith., Photographische Gesellschaft,
Berlin, courtesy AIP Emilio Segr e Visual Archives, Harvard University Collection.)

V
P 1 1

IV I

P

P V
2 2
P V
4 4
II
P V
III
3 3
V
FIGURE 5.2 A qualitative sketch of the Carnot cycle. The actual shape is more of a narrow crescent
shape than is often depicted in other sources. Photographs of Carnot’s notes show the graph narrow as
shown here. An excellent simulation can be found on the Internet at http:==demonstrations.wolfram.com=
CarnotCycleOnIdealGas=