12 lives in this collection worked in thermodynamics, from 1796 to today. Each has a full course on their life and the mathematics and physics they made.
Often together with: statistical mechanics, experimental physics, fluid dynamics, kinetic theory of gases, mathematical physics, physiology, theoretical physics. All fields
French engineer officer whose single book, Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu (1824), introduced the reversible cycle and the efficiency limit of heat engines and founded thermodynamics.
thermodynamics, theory of heat engines, military engineering
Heilbronn physician who in 1842 first published the conservation of energy as a universal principle and computed the mechanical equivalent of heat from gas data.
thermodynamics, physiology, medicine
Manchester brewer and experimenter who found the law of electrical heating and measured the mechanical equivalent of heat, the experimental basis of energy conservation.
thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, kinetic theory of gases
Physician and physicist who gave the first general statement of the conservation of energy, measured the speed of the nerve impulse, invented the ophthalmoscope, founded vortex dynamics and introduced free energy.
physics, physiology, thermodynamics
Founder of classical thermodynamics who stated the second law, introduced internal energy and entropy, and introduced the mean free path and the virial theorem in the kinetic theory of gases.
thermodynamics, kinetic theory of gases, mathematical physics
Glasgow physicist who defined absolute temperature, stated the second law and the dissipation of energy, and supplied the theory and instruments of the transatlantic telegraph.
thermodynamics, electricity and telegraphy, fluid dynamics
Dutch physicist whose equation of state unified gas and liquid, explained the critical point and founded the molecular theory of phase transitions; Nobel Prize in Physics 1910.
thermodynamics, molecular physics, statistical mechanics
Yale physicist who founded chemical thermodynamics, created the ensemble formulation of statistical mechanics and introduced modern vector analysis.
thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, physical chemistry
Founder of statistical mechanics, author of the Boltzmann equation, the H-theorem and the statistical interpretation of entropy, and champion of the atomic theory.
theoretical physics, statistical mechanics, kinetic theory
German physicist who discovered rectification at crystal contacts, built the cathode-ray tube, introduced the coupled tuned transmitter and early phased arrays, and shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Marconi.
experimental physics, wireless telegraphy, solid-state physics
Originator of quantum theory, who introduced the quantum of action h in his 1900 derivation of the black-body radiation law.
theoretical physics, thermodynamics, quantum theory
Physicist who found the displacement law and the high-frequency distribution law of black-body radiation, and identified the positive particles of canal rays with crossed electric and magnetic fields.
experimental physics, thermal radiation, thermodynamics