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How Did We Get Here? The Tangled History of the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Stephen Wolfram

And indeed particularly in chemistry and engineering it’s often been in the background, justifying all the computations routinely done using entropy. There had been precursors of steam engines even in antiquity, but it was only in 1712 that the first practical steam engine was developed. Lazare Carnot died in 1823.

Energy 88
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Remembering the Improbable Life of Ed Fredkin (1934–2023) and His World of Ideas and Stories

Stephen Wolfram

It didn’t help that his knowledge of physics was at best spotty (and, for example, I don’t think he ever really learned calculus). His father ’s university engineering studies had been cut short by the Russian Revolution, and he now had a one-man wholesale electronic parts business. Petersburg; his mother in Odessa ; they met in LA).