Destroying the "Caloric Theory"

Heat and work were both energy, and both used the dimensions of energy.

That was common knowledge—but it was Rorschach's common knowledge as an engineering student, not the prevailing view in this fantasy world!

In ancient times, spellcasters and alchemists had discovered that matter could be endlessly divided into tiny particles. By observing celestial bodies, dust, and steam, Leucippus, an arcane master from before the Old Empire, had declared: elements and aether had indivisible smallest units. They drifted through space and the world beyond the veil, stirring vortices and gathering together to form all things and magic.

"The Primordial God used His great divine power to bind together tiny elements and create all things, just as we shape pottery by mixing water with fine grains of earth."

Thus, the smallest units of elements—or rather, matter—were named Elemental Subunits. After the transition from the Old Empire to the new era, the term was translated by the Flash Tribe and then passed back to the main continent, where Elemental Subunits became corrupted into "atoms."

Discovering atoms was all well and good, but spellcasters—alchemists in particular—had a rather severe case of the I reckon disease. Since physical objects were made of tiny particles, they figured everything else must be tiny, untouchable particles too.

Aether was made of particles? Rorschach had not figured that out yet, so he withheld judgment. Light was made of particles? He could give that half a point. But there were particles called phlogiston and caloric? Today, he was going to overturn the "Caloric Theory"! On the surface, Rorschach smiled at Kano and said he would revise it again. The moment he turned away, he began viciously planning an experiment on the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat.

Suppose heat was a particle called "caloric." Modern people from Rorschach's original world might not understand it, but the hypothesis was indeed easy to analogize and could describe certain phenomena of heat transfer.

For example, one could imagine temperature as a measure of how much "caloric" there was, or as the potential difference of caloric stored inside an object. Then "a high-temperature object transferring heat to a low-temperature object" could be vividly compared to water overflowing from a high place and flowing downward.

Combined with the heavyweight contender known as the Phlogiston Theory, it was practically a match made in heaven: once caloric accumulated to a certain degree, it activated phlogiston, which continuously degraded into caloric and was released during combustion.

But there were phenomena it could not explain.

There was an alchemist who firmly believed in the Caloric Theory and lived amid the ice and snow of the continent's north. He had two friends, a dwarf and a Polar Elf, as well as an apprentice.

First, the apprentice brought over two identical large copper pots, filled one with oil and the other with water, then placed equal weights of ice into both. After the ice had completely melted, the apprentice measured the temperatures and discovered:

"Master, why did the oil and water lose the same amount of caloric, yet their temperatures dropped by different amounts?"

"Different substances have different capacities for accepting or losing caloric. The caloric in the environment must have replenished the caloric in the liquid inside the pot with the lower temperature, allowing all the ice to melt."

Then his Polar Elf friend asked why rubbing one's hands made them warm. He answered that, during the unconscious act of rubbing one's hands, one had activated magic and transformed aether into caloric.

The elf had him use Mage Hand to seize one block of ice and rub it against another, claiming that the ice would melt as well. "Do ice blocks know magic?" The alchemist told the elf to stop teasing him.

Finally, his dwarf friend sent him a letter. While manufacturing cannon barrels, he had submerged an iron cylinder in water and drilled out the bore. After drilling for two and a half hours, the water had actually boiled. This puzzled him greatly. Could caloric be a mineral that could be drilled out? The alchemist replied: there was caloric inside the metal cylinder, and it was released while iron filings were produced.

Then the dwarf wrote again: if caloric was uniformly distributed throughout an object, would it not be contradictory that drilling with a sharp bit produced less warming in the water but more iron filings, while drilling with a blunt bit produced more warming in the water but fewer iron filings?

Rorschach told the story of such an alchemist living in the polar regions.

"And then?" Pascal yawned, using a piece of bread to wipe up the last of the cream of mushroom soup from the bottom of his bowl.

"Then he flew into a rage and reported the dwarf to the imperial authorities for privately manufacturing heavy weapons." Rorschach cut off a piece of duck and put it into his mouth. "After we finish eating, let's go to the Alchemy Department. Oh, and Teacher Kano asked you to bring the liqueur from his office to the laboratory over on Pastoral Avenue."

"You're going too? Are we doing another experiment?"

"Don't worry. This time, people from the Alchemy Department will help us."

On the first floor of the Alchemy Department, Mage Snow had already arrived, along with several other men. In a cleared-out section of the storeroom stood two devices. Both had glass tanks containing equal masses of water.

One device had a propeller blade inserted into the water. Its connecting rod was wrapped several times with rope, one end of which was tied to a large weight. Clearly, when the weight was released, its descent would drive the propeller blade to stir.

In the other device, the falling weight would drive the smallest rotor generator the Alchemy Department could make. Part of the circuit was coiled like a spring and submerged in water.

Snow looked pained. "Mage Rorschach, this isn't a destructive experiment, is it? The resistance wire you wanted is an iron-aluminum alloy!" In a world without electrolytic aluminum, the Alchemy Department had even tried developing spells to refine aluminum—this dull gray stuff cost slightly more than gold.

"Don't worry, it isn't. Have the mechanical parts been lubricated? I want as little friction as possible." Rorschach inspected the experimental apparatus. "The weights on both sides need to be level at the same height, and that height must be recorded. What's the room temperature now? It's the same as the water temperature."

At last, they released the weights on both devices. The paddle in Device One spun, while the rotor in Device Two turned.

The weights hit the ground. "Quick, record the water temperature readings."

"And then? One set of experiments is over?" Pascal was a little bewildered. It was that simple? This was nothing like the experiments he had participated in before.

"Yes." Simple experiments and genius insight yielded great conclusions—this was the work of the great Joule.

Snow took the data recorded by one of the men. "They're almost identical! Mage Rorschach! The water really warmed up, and the temperatures are the same!"

Rorschach nodded. "If we could completely eliminate wire resistance and friction, they should be exactly the same. Of course, our thermometers aren't precise enough to measure the difference anyway."

Pascal still did not understand the point. "What are you trying to prove with these experiments?"

"In the experiment designed by Mage Rorschach, every item began at the same temperature. Logically, there should not have been any transfer of caloric. But after the weights were released, kinetic energy caused the water temperature to rise! The two different devices transmitted kinetic energy, and without any aether involved, they raised the water to the same temperature."

"It proves that heat and work can be converted into each other." Rorschach took over. "If we regard heat as caloric, that is difficult to explain. Our devices have no Magic Circuits. But if we regard heat as a form of energy, conducted into matter and causing tiny movements in its particles, then Device One lets us see it directly: macroscopic motion is converted into minute motion within matter, and the result is a rise in temperature."

Heat was not a substance, but a phenomenon of microscopic particle motion. It could be equivalently converted with macroscopic mechanical motion. The phenomena the Caloric Theory could explain, he could explain. The phenomena the Caloric Theory could not explain, he could explain as well. This was the Kinetic Theory of Heat!

He walked over to the device with the generator. "Device Two proves that the kinetic energy of macroscopic motion, electrical energy, and heat can also be converted into one another. If we raise both devices and increase the distance the weights fall, we should be able to observe the water rising to an even higher temperature. With the weight mass, falling height, and water mass known, we can calculate the relationship between temperature and kinetic energy."

Thus, they began multiple rounds of experiments. From the resulting string of data, it was easy to see that the height the weights fell was proportional to the temperature increase.

"You were right, Mage Rorschach. Heat and work can be measured in the same units! I have no reason not to believe in your Conservation of Energy and equivalence theory anymore!"

"And electrical energy too, Mr. Snow."

According to the author's shallow knowledge of the history of science, unlike this fantasy world, the Caloric Theory in our world was only widely accepted after materialism rose in the eighteenth century. Before that, in the seventeenth century and after the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat experiments, the Kinetic Theory of Heat had been dominant. Kano, Lavoisier, and Laplace were all supporters of the Caloric Theory.