again, that it is connected only with bodies impermeable to heat.
This is Carnot's principle in one of its concrete forms.
A machine which realizes this condition, that the agent (steam, alcohol, ether) is in relation, at all phases of its function, with bodies which can neither take heat from it nor give heat to it, is a reversible machine. Such a machine is perfect. The fraction of heat that it transforms into motion is constant; it is a maximum; it is independent of the motor, of its organs, of the agent: it accurately expresses the transformability of the heat agent into a mechanical agent under the given conditions.
The Degradation and Restoration of Energy.—The fraction not utilized, that which is carried to the condenser at a lower temperature, is degraded. It can only be used by a new agent, in a new machine in which the boiler has exactly the same temperature as the condenser in the first machine, and the new condenser has a lower temperature, and so on. The proportion of utilizable energy thus goes on diminishing. Its utilization requires conditions more and more difficult to realize. The thermal energy loses its potential and its value, and is further and further degraded as its temperature approaches that of the surrounding medium.
The degraded energy, theoretically, has kept its equivalent value but, practically, it is incapable of conversion. However, it is shown in physics that it can be raised and re-established at its initial level. But for that purpose another energy must be utilized and degraded for its benefit.
The End of the Universe.—What we have just
