, especially physical chemistry, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering.

Historically, the distinction between heat and temperature was studied in the 1750s by Joseph Black.
Characteristically thermodynamic thinking began in the work of Carnot(1824) who believed that the
efficiency of heat engines was the key that could help France win the Napoleonic Wars.[1] The Irishborn British physicist Lord Kelvin was the first to formulate a concise definition of thermodynamics in
1854:[2]
Thermo-dynamics is the subject of the relation of heat to forces acting between contiguous parts of
bodies, and the relation of heat to electrical agency.
Initially, thermodynamics, as applied to heat engines, was concerned with the thermal properties of
their 'working materials', such as steam, in an effort to increase the efficiency and power output of
engines. Thermodynamics was later expanded to the study of energy transfers in chemical
processes, such as the investigation, published in 1840, of the heats of chemical
reactions[3] by Germain Hess, which was not originally explicitly concerned with the relation between
energy exchanges by heat and work. From this evolved the study of chemical thermodynamics and
the role of entropy in chemical reactions.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]