Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot was born in Paris at the Palais du Petit-Luxembourg into a family that was distinguished in … See more

When Carnot began working on his book, steam engines had achieved widely recognized economic and industrial importance, but there had been no real scientific study of them. Newcomen had invented th… See more

Carnot's book received very little attention from his contemporaries. The only reference to it within a few years after its publication was in a review in the periodical Revue Encyclopédique, which was a journal tha… See more

Carnot died during a cholera epidemic in 1832, at the age of 36. (Asimov 1982, p. 332) Because of the contagious nature of cholera, many of Carnot's belongings and writings were buried together with him after his death. … See more

• Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire (1824) See more