ABSTRACT
Energy or work—the measure of its use or application—was the universal currency of industry from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The publication of Fourier's Theorie analytique de la chaleur in 1822 in effect cut through the difficulties and established a science of heat that was autonomous, consistent and comprehensive. Expressed in elegant mathematics and with clearly defined concepts, including that of conductivity, it struck impartial readers as the complete theory of heat. The engineers may not have been interested in problems in the study of heat, but the concept of work that they developed was to prove essential in the establishment of thermodynamics. Faraday could put forward basically heterodox theories how much more likely was it that the doctrine of work, and implicitly of energy, could form the basis for the science of thermodynamics. J. P. Joule's approach to the dynamical theory of heat did not lead him to consider the operation of the steam engine in any detail.
