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Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire

Sadi Carnot's contribution to the development of thermodynamics is contained in his only published work, a short book titled Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance ("Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power") published in Paris in June of 1824 by Bachelier, with Carnot himself paying for the printing of the 600 copies. The work attracted little attention during his lifetime and virtually disappeared from booksellers and libraries. An article published in 1834 (two years after Carnot's death and ten years after the publication of his book) by the engineer and fellow polytechnicien Émile Clapeyron finally succeeded in calling attention to Carnot's work, which some years later was used by Lord Kelvin and Rudolf Clausius to define the concepts of absolute temperature, entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics.