Starting with the Newtonian revolution, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw with the development of analytical mechanics an unprecedented tool for the analysis and prediction of natural phenomena. The power and precision of Hamiltonian perturbation theory allowed even the details of the motion observed in the solar system to be explained quantitatively. In practical terms, analytical mechanics made the construction of highly effective machines possible. Unsurprisingly, these successes led to the widespread belief that, ultimately, mechanics could explain the functioning of the entire universe. On the basis of this confidence, new areas of physics, outside the realm of the immediate applicability of Newtonian mechanics, became the target of the new science of theoretical (analytical) physics. One of the most important of these new fields was the theory of heat, or thermodynamics. One of the main principles of Newtonian mechanics was that of the conservation of energy. Now, such a principle could not hold entirely, due to the ubiquitous loss of energy through friction.