Carnot's Cycle, or PRINCIPLE

Enunciated by Nicolas Sadi Carnot 1824, that the ratio of maximum effect to the total heat expended in a perfect heat-engine is a function solely of the two constant temperatures at which heat is received and rejected by that engine. Or, otherwise, if a closed curve on a plane of co-ordinate axis represent by its ordinates the succe ion of pre ures when the external pre ure is at each instant equal to the elastic force of a gas, the exterior work is the dynamic equivalent of the heat supplied to and abstracted from the gas during the cycle represented by such curve. The perimeter of such a curve may be conceived as a polygon made up of infinitesimal sides, which are succe ively isothermal and adiabatic curves.