3 ms·
I like to imagine that thermodynamics happened because industrial metallurgy and boiler design advanced to the point where people started asking "what are the f
by MathMonkeyMan 1y ago
I like to imagine that thermodynamics happened because industrial metallurgy and boiler design advanced to the point where people started asking "what are the fundamental constraints?"
There's a chance that it didn't actually happen that way, though.
edit: I also heard that Louis Pasteur did work for breweries, answering the question "Why do some batches come out nasty while most are fine, given the same inputs?"
- ludicrousdispla 1y agoThe history of steam engines would suggest that our understanding of thermodynamics developed out of a large base of first-hand experience. Same story for Calculus. And the t-statistic was developed by a QA guy (student) at Guinness.