Historical contextIn a 1847 lecture entitled On Matter, Living Force, and Heat, James Prescott Joule characterized the terms latent heat and sensible heat as components of heat each effecting distinct physical phenomena, namely the potential and kinetic e

Historical contextIn a 1847 lecture entitled On Matter, Living Force, and Heat, James Prescott Joule characterized the terms latent heat and sensible heat as components of heat each effecting distinct physical phenomena, namely the potential and kinetic energy of particles, respectively.[4] He describes latent energy as the energy of interaction in a given configuration of particles, i.e., a form of potential energy, and the sensible heat as an energy affecting the thermal energy, which he called the living force.

[edit] Thermal energy of the ideal gas