text: In theoretical thermodynamics, respected authors vary in their approaches to the definition of quantity of heat transferred. There are two main streams of thinking. One is from a primarily empirical viewpoint (which will here be referred to as the thermodynamic stream), to define heat transfer as occurring only by specified macroscopic mechanisms; loosely speaking, this approach is historically older. The other (which will here be referred to as the mechanical stream) is from a primarily theoretical viewpoint, to define it as a residual quantity calculated after transfers of energy as macroscopic work, between two bodies or closed systems, have been determined for a process, so as to conform with the principle of conservation of energy or the first law of thermodynamics for closed systems; this approach grew in the twentieth century, though was partly manifest in the nineteenth.