The Nickel Heat Engine

Abstract

MR. KARAMATE, in a letter which appears in your issue of March 3 (p. 416), alludes to a new form of heat engine described by me in your issue of January 28 (p. 294). He states that my device is similar to one by Prof. Stefan. I wish to point out that the two heat engines are quite different in design. The engine of Prof. Stefan has a step by step action; that described by me is under certain conditions absolutely continuous in its-action. The contrast is shown by Mr. Karamate's description of Prof. Stefan's engine; he writes:—“Nickel plates were fixed on a wheel, like that of a water-mill, and a magnet was placed before it. By heating a nickel plate before the magnet, it was repulsed by the magnet, and a succeeding plate was attracted, so that the wheel commenced to rotate.” From this it seems clear that the action of the machine must be step by step, since the different pieces of nickel must come successively under the influence of the magnet and the flame. In my disk form of engine, the action, when the disk has a certain thickness, is continuous. Mr. Croft has recently shown that when the disk is not so thick as mine was the disk starts in one direction, then stops, and sets off in the opposite direction. It will also be noticed that the distribution of the magnetic field due to twopoles is entirely different from that in the machine of Prof. Stefan. Mr. Karamate writes: “By heating a nickel plate before the magnet, it was repulsed by the magnet.” I hardly see how this repulsion takes place. Faraday, writing about the behaviour of nickel, states (“Experimental Researches,” vol. iii., 2346): “Upon being heated the nickel soon became indifferent to ordinary magnets, but, however high the temperature, still it pointed to and was attracted by the electro-magnet.” Surely the action of the engine is due to one piece of nickel becoming partly non-magnetic owing to a rise of temperature, thus upsetting equilibrium, and allowing the next piece of nickel to approach the magnet and consequently the flame.