Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/194

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170
THOMSON ON CARNOT'S

extreme limits of his observations, the latent heat of a unit weight of saturated steam.

Explanation of Table I.

37. The mean values of μ for the first, for the eleventh, for the twenty-first, and so on, up to the 231st[1] degree of the air-thermometer, have been calculated in the manner explained in the preceding paragraphs. These, and interpolated results, which must agree with what would have been obtained, by direct calculation from Regnault's data, to three significant places of figures (and even for the temperatures between 0° and 100°, the experimental data do not justify us in relying on any of the results to a greater degree of accuracy), are exhibited in Table I.

To find the amount of mechanical effect due to a unit of heat, descending from a body at a temperature S to a body at T, if these numbers be integers, we have merely to add the values of μ in Table I. corresponding to the successive numbers.

T + 1, T + 2, .... S - 2, S - 1.
  1. In strictness, the 230th is the last degree for which the experimental data are complete; but the data for the 231st may readily be assumed in a sufficiently satisfactory manner.