"Newton and his theories were a step ahead of the technologies that would define his age. Thermodynamics, the grand theoretical vision of the nineteenth century, operated in the other direction with practice leading theory. The sweeping concepts of energy, , work and entropy, which thermodynamics (and its later form, statistical mechanics) would embrace, began first on the shop floor. Originally the domain of engineers, thermodynamics emerged from their engagement with machines. Only later did this study of heat and its transformation rise to the heights of abstract physics and, finally, to a new cosmological vision."