Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire Review

Some books, I wonder why I read.  After I read Einstein’s Fridge, I went out and put Hydrodynamica and Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire on my reading list.  I thought it would be fascinating to see how our understanding of these concepts has evolved since those seminal works, and informative on their subjects as only original source material can be – after all, I’ve learnt more of history from reading contemporaneous manuscripts than I have from reading conventional history texts.  Alas, only the former proved true, and I do not know that I will pursue other materials of this type.

Don’t get me wrong: Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire/Heat is well-written, and you’ll doubtless learn something if you are not already well-versed in thermodynamics and heat engines.  It’s also historically fascinating, offering context on the time and how it was perceived by its inhabitants, which is not necessarily the same as how historians now perceive it.  Indeed, I wonder what people two hundred years from now will think of us from today’s scientific papers.  Probably that we sound very odd, if we keep writing openings like I discussed in my post about communicating clearly.

From a scientific sense, though, there are far better means by which to learn about thermodynamics and the theory of heat engines, ways that don’t require you to verify what information is accurate and current, and what information may have changed in the intervening centuries.  Perhaps I was attempting to tick too many boxes with this read, going after history, science, philosophy (a little), and a bit of autobiography all at once, and ending up with something that is mediocre in all of them.  Again, it wasn’t bad.  It was still interesting, and well written, and I don’t regret reading it.  I’m just not certain that it was worth the time to read when I look at everything else on my extensive reading list.

My ultimate recommendation on this is therefore somewhat ambiguous.  You might find it quite interesting and valuable, and it would certainly make ideal research material for a piece inspired by that time period.  For me, though, I don’t think that I’ll be pursuing similar works in the future.  Even though I can’t quite bring myself to take Principia Mathematica off of my reading list.