Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814), also known as Count Rumford, was an American-born physicist and inventor who made significant contributions to the fields of thermodynamics and the understanding of heat. He is best known for his work on the nature of heat and its relationship to mechanical work.
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Benjamin Thompson, also known as Count Rumford, investigated the sustained production of heat by friction during cannon boring. In the water-enclosed experiment, continued mechanical motion heated the surrounding water to boiling. He also compared the thermal behavior of material removed from the bore with that of the original metal, testing whether the heating could be explained by releasing a special store from the chips. The observations helped challenge a finite-reservoir account of caloric and connected mechanical work with the production of heat.[ref]
An inquiry concerning the source of the heat which is excited by friction by Benjamin Thompson. 1798 paper, metal-chip/strip comparison and Experiment No. 3
Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford; early nineteenth-century copy after a 1792 portrait by Moritz Kellerhoven; National Portrait Gallery, London; public-domain image via Wikimedia Commons
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