Rudolf Clausius

Born: 2 Jan 1822 in Koslin, Prussia (now Koszalin, Poland)
Died: 24 Aug 1888 in Bonn, Germany

Rudolf Clausius was professor of physics in Berlin (1850), then in Zurich (1855), then at Würzburg (1867) and finally at Bonn (1869).

Essentially a theoretical physicist, he did important work in thermodynamics. In a paper of 1865 he stated the First and Second laws of thermodynamics in the following form.

1. The energy of the universe is constant.
2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.

In all Clausius wrote eight important papers on the topic. He restated Sadi Carnot's principle of the efficiency of heat engines. The Clausius-Clapeyron equation expresses the relation between the pressure and temperature at which two phases of a substance are in equilibrium.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. J W Gibbs, Rudolf Julius Emmanuel Clausius, Proc. Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences 16 (1889), 458-465.
  4. G Ronge, Die Zuricher Jahre des Physikers Rudolf Clausius, Gesnerus 12 (1955), 73-108.
  5. E Mendoza (ed.), Reflections on the motive power of fire by Sadi Carnot, and other papers on the second law of thermodynamics by E Clapeyron and R Claissius (New York, 1960).
  6. M Osietzki, Rudolf Clausius 1822 bis 1888, Kultur und Technik 4 (1988), 205-206.
  7. W H Cropper, Rudolf Clausius and the road to entropy, American journal of physics 54 (1986), 1068-1074.
  8. C Jungnickel and R McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature, 2 Volumes (Chicago, 1986).