Sympathetic Physics
The Keely Motor and the Laws of Thermodynamics in Nineteenth-Century Culture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4023809 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Russell Macdougall (0000-0002-3362-5942, Western University, corresponding author), Robert Macdougall (0000-0002-1383-6275) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 438-466 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Technology and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tech.2019.0031 |
| PMID | 31204338 |
| OpenAlex | W2951050319 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
In Philadelphia in the 1870s, John Worrell Keely announced the invention of a fantastic new motor that could, he promised, drive locomotives, power factories, and even defy gravity without fuel or heat. The Keely Motor became the most notorious perpetual motion scheme of the nineteenth century, attracting believers and investors for nearly thirty years. This article explores the "work" the motor performed for Keely, his supporters, and his critics-not physical work, but financial, cultural, and psychological. To investors, the Keely Motor represented a dream of riches without effort. To Keely's critics, the motor offered an opportunity to defend the legitimacy of the new industrial economy. And to Keely's staunchest supporters, including the author and heiress Clara Moore, the motor was a rebuke to the laws of thermodynamics and the parsimonious political economy, the pessimistic theology, and the anti-feminist psychiatry those laws were alleged to support
Dream · Epistemology · Laws of thermodynamics · Legitimacy · Pessimism · Physics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Thermodynamics · Work (physics) · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Engineering · History and Developments in Astronomy · Law · Mechanical Engineering · Philosophy · Psychology
A history of American magazines, 1741-1850
American nervousness
Energy, Force, and Matter. The Conceptual Development of Nineteenth-Century Physics
Popular Lectures and Addresses
Re‐writing the ‘book of blots’
Taking a Chance
Consuming energies
The Democratization of Invention
Energy and Entropy
The show that never ends
Perpetual Motion
Henry Adams, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the Course of History
Work and Waste
Work and Waste
To Engineer Is Human
Picturephone and the Information Age
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |