“Heat” isn’t a thing either. It’s all just molecules bopping around. A very smart person might have been able to deduce this (or at least raise it as a possibility) by thinking about the fact that rubbing two sticks together makes heat.
The original theory of thermodynamics grew out of things like this, except the possibility that they considered had to do with a “caloric fluid”. All objects had this particular fluid stored inside of them, and by rubbing the sticks together or something like that, you could simply release the fluid while gradually breaking down the object. Which is a reasonable conclusion, assuming you don’t have all the historical background that we do in atomic physics.
“Heat” isn’t a thing either. It’s all just molecules bopping around. A very smart person might have been able to deduce this (or at least raise it as a possibility) by thinking about the fact that rubbing two sticks together makes heat.
The original theory of thermodynamics grew out of things like this, except the possibility that they considered had to do with a “caloric fluid”. All objects had this particular fluid stored inside of them, and by rubbing the sticks together or something like that, you could simply release the fluid while gradually breaking down the object. Which is a reasonable conclusion, assuming you don’t have all the historical background that we do in atomic physics.