Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 1.djvu/339

resistance, and the quantity of electricity is the product of the current into the time. Hence the quantity of heat multiplied by the mechanical equivalent of unit of heat is equal to the square of the strength of the current multiplied into the resistance and into the time.

The heat developed by electric currents in overcoming the resistance of conductors has been determined by Dr. Joule, who first established that the heat produced in a given time is proportional to the square of the current, and afterwards by careful absolute measurements of all the quantities concerned, verified the equation

$JH=C^{2}Rt,$

where $J$ is Joule's dynamical equivalent of heat, $H$ the number of units of heat, $C$ the strength of the current, $R$ the resistance of the conductor, and $t$ the time during which the current flows. These relations between electromotive force, work, and heat, were first fully explained by Sir W. Thomson in a paper on the application of the principle of mechanical effect to the measurement of electromotive forces^[1].

243.] The analogy between the theory of the conduction of electricity and that of the conduction of heat is at first sight almost complete. If we take two systems geometrically similar, and such that the conductivity for heat at any part of the first is proportional to the conductivity for electricity at the corresponding part of the second, and if we also make the temperature at any part of the first proportional to the electric potential at the corresponding point of the second, then the flow of heat across any area of the first will be proportional to the flow of electricity across the corresponding area of the second.

Thus, in the illustration we have given, in which flow of electricity corresponds to flow of heat, and electric potential to temperature, electricity tends to flow from places of high to places of low potential, exactly as heat tends to flow from places of high to places of low temperature.

244.] The theory of potential and that of temperature may therefore be made to illustrate one another; there is, however, one remarkable difference between the phenomena of electricity and those of heat.

Suspend a conducting body within a closed conducting vessel by a silk thread, and charge the vessel with electricity. The potential

1. Phil. Mag., Dec. 1851.