Laws of thermodynamics
Circa 1797, Count Rumford (born Benjamin Thompson) showed that endless mechanical action can generate indefinitely large amounts of heat from a fixed amount of working substance thus challenging the caloric theory of heat, which held that there would be a finite amount of caloric heat/energy in a fixed amount of working substance. The first established thermodynamic principle, which eventually became the second law of thermodynamics, was formulated by Sadi Carnot in 1824. By 1860, as formalized in the works of those such as Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson, two established principles of thermodynamics had evolved, the first principle and the second principle, later restated as thermodynamic laws. By 1873, for example, thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, in his memoir "Graphical Methods in the Thermodynamics of Fluids", clearly stated the first two absolute laws of thermodynamics. Some textbooks throughout the 20th century have numbered the laws differently. In some fields removed from chemistry, the second law was considered to deal with the efficiency of heat engines only, whereas what was called the third law dealt with entropy increases. Directly defining zero points for entropy calculations was not considered to be a law. Gradually, this separation was combined into the second law and the modern third law was widely adopted.
Stephen G. Brush
His work on the history of thermodynamics began with a series of essays in "Annals of Science" (1957/1958) on the kinetic theory of gases. In this work he brought attention to forgotten precursors of kinetic theory like John Herapath and John James Waterston, who formulated the law of equal distribution in 1845 rejected by the Royal Society. In 1964 Brush translated the lectures of Ludwig Boltzmann on Gas Theory into English, and edited several reprint volumes of classical works from statistical mechanics. His first set of two books on Kinetic Theory of Gases was published by Pergamon Press in 1966. The third volume of the series was published in 1972. This was followed by a two volume set called The Kind of Motion We Call Heat, published in 1976, and The Temperature of History, in 1978 (see Publications list).