《論摩擦激起的熱源》[1](英語:An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Source of the Heat which is Excited by Friction[2],也稱為倫福德的炮筒鏜孔摩擦生熱實驗[3])(1798),是由倫福德最早發表在《自然科學會報》[4] 上的一篇論文,這篇論文向當時的熱質理論拋出了一個重大難題,並引發了19世紀的熱力學革命。
From p. 100 of Rumford's paper of 1798: "Before I finish this paper, I would beg leave to observe, that although, in treating the subject I have endeavoured to investigate, I have made no mention of the names of those who have gone over the same ground before me, nor of the success of their labours; this omission has not been owing to any want of respect for my predecessors, but was merely to avoid prolixity, and to be more at liberty to pursue, without interruption, the natural train of my own ideas."
In his Novum Organum (1620), Francis Bacon concludes that heat is the motion of the particles composing matter. In Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (London, England: William Pickering, 1850), from page 164: (頁面存檔備份,存於網際網路檔案館) " … Heat appears to be Motion." From p. 165: (頁面存檔備份,存於網際網路檔案館) " … the very essence of Heat, or the Substantial self of Heat, is motion and nothing else, … " From p. 168: (頁面存檔備份,存於網際網路檔案館) " … Heat is not a uniform Expansive Motion of the whole, but of the small particles of the body; … "
"Of the mechanical origin of heat and cold" in: Robert Boyle, Experiments, Notes, &c. About the Mechanical Origine or Production of Divers Particular Qualities: … (London, England: E. Flesher (printer), 1675). At the conclusion of Experiment VI, Boyle notes that if a nail is driven completely into a piece of wood, then further blows with the hammer cause it to become hot as the hammer's force is transformed into random motion of the nail's atoms. From pp. 61-62: " … the impulse given by the stroke, being unable either to drive the nail further on, or destroy its interness [i.e., entireness, integrity], must be spent in making various vehement and intestine commotion of the parts among themselves, and in such an one we formerly observed the nature of heat to consist."
"Lectures of Light" (May 1681) in: Robert Hooke with R. Waller, ed., The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke … (London, England: Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, 1705). From page 116: (頁面存檔備份,存於網際網路檔案館) "Now Heat, as I shall afterward prove, is nothing but the internal Motion of the Particles of [a] Body; and the hotter a Body is, the more violently are the Particles moved, … "
Sometime during the period 1698-1704, John Locke wrote his book Elements of Natural Philosophy, which was first published in 1720: John Locke with Pierre Des Maizeaux, ed., A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Locke, Never Before Printed, Or Not Extant in His Works (London, England: R. Francklin, 1720). From p. 224: (頁面存檔備份,存於網際網路檔案館) "Heat, is a very brisk agitation of the insensible parts of the object, which produces in us that sensation, from whence we denominate the object hot: so what in our sensation is heat, in the object is nothing but motion. This appears by the way, whereby heat is produc'd: for we see that the rubbing of a brass-nail upon a board, will make it very hot; and the axle-trees of carts and coaches are often hot, and sometimes to a degree, that it sets them on fire, by rubbing of the nave of the wheel upon it."
Henry Cavendish (1783) "Observations on Mr. Hutchins's experiments for determining the degree of cold at which quicksilver freezes," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 73 : 303-328. From the footnote continued on p. 313: (頁面存檔備份,存於網際網路檔案館) " … I think Sir Isaac Newton's opinion, that heat consists in the internal motion of the particles of bodies, much the most probable … "
Henry, William. A review of some experiments which have been supposed to disprove the materiality of heat. Manchester Memoirs(英語:Manchester Memoirs). 1802, (V): 603.