maxwell
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Dissemination of Gibbs’s work (Path 1): Gibbs ➔ Maxwell ➔ Pupin ➔ Helmholtz ➔ van’t Hoff ➔ community
Gibbs’ work spread throughout Europe along two separate paths. As already mentioned (here), the first started with Maxwell. It was his book that indirectly led Gibbs’s work to Helmholtz along an interesting path taken by Michael Pupin (1858-1935).[1] As a doctoral student in experimental physics at the University of Berlin under Helmholtz, Pupin was familiar… Continue reading
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How Gibbs’s work spread into the science community
It is a great pity that many cultivators of the science of thermodynamics since the time of Gibbs have not gone back to the fountainhead and closely correlated their results with this. – F. G. Donnan [1] The exceptional man is always in advance of his generation. Willard Gibbs was not alone in failing at… Continue reading
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From steam to entropy: Creating a thermodynamics tour through Europe (and Yale)
I need your input on this. A friend of mine asked, “Bob, how about creating a European tour featuring the different locations where the founders of thermodynamics worked, including opportunities to taste the local beers?” I responded, “Great idea!” So what would that tour look like? Here’s a very rough outline based on chronological sequencing:… Continue reading
Block by Block – The Historical and Theoretical Foundations of Thermodynamics. “Hanlon has written a masterpiece.” – Mike Pauken, Senior Engineer, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and author of Thermodynamics for Dummies
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About Me
Hi! I’m Bob Hanlon. After earning my Sc.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and enjoying a long career in both industry and academia, I’ve returned to school, my own self-guided school, seeking to better understand the world of thermodynamics. Please join me on my journey.
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