Electric heating

It may assist in a better understanding of the terms used in discussing electric heating to state at the outset that the words heat, potential, etc., are employed more specifically than has generally been found necessary in discussing heat effects apart from electricity. Heat, like electricity, is assumed to flow from a surface of high potential to one of low potential. Quantity or volume of heat is analogous to quantity of electricity. Unit quantity is here figured as the British thermal unit, though for technical purposes it is, of course, the calorie. Temperature corresponds to potential. Heat potential is as true an expression of potential as is impressed electromotive force; it should not, however, be confounded with static potential, a term used in discussing energy of gas. It would materially simplify thermal nomenclature if a word were coined to designate heat potential in the same manner that electromotive force expresses electrical potential.