◀ ▲ ▶History / 19th-century / Person: Clausius, Rudolf Julius Emmanuel

Person: Clausius, Rudolf Julius Emmanuel

Rudolf Clausius did important work in thermodynamics.

Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):

• Clausius entered the University of Berlin in 1840 although at this stage he was still not clear which subjects he would pursue.
• At the Gymnasium Clausius taught the advanced classes in mathematics and physics.
• However in this work Clausius applied mathematics far more deeply than any of his predecessors and it is a good illustration of how physical problems drive the development of mathematics even when their physical basis is unsound.
• Clausius's first paper on the mechanical theory of heat was published in 1850.
• On 29 August 1855 Clausius was appointed to the Chair of Mathematical Physics at the Polytechnikum in Zürich and at the same time he was also appointed to the University of Zürich.
• It was certainly an excellent place for Clausius to push forward his ideas surrounded by other excellent mathematicians and physicists.
• Clausius was a German patriot and, although he was nearing 50 years of age, he offered his services to his country in the Franco-Prussian war which had broken out.
• Clausius received the Iron Cross in 1871 for his services to the German campaign.
• This Clausius did and in 1878 he took up riding, soon becoming an expert horseman.
• Clausius was a theoretical physicist, in fact he played an important role in establishing theoretical physics as a discipline.
• Clausius first stated the basic idea of the second law of thermodynamics.
• To understand the significance of Clausius's paper we should say a few words about the theory of heat which existed at this time.
• However, in his 1850 paper, Clausius states clearly that the assumptions of the caloric theory are false and he gives two laws of thermodynamics to replace the incorrect assumptions.
• Clausius had experimental evidence of this law, not from his own experiments but from those of Joule.
• Clausius interpreted free heat as the kinetic energy of the particles of the body.
• The introduction of U, the energy of the body, was of great significance although Clausius did not give it a name.
• in the memoir of Clausius ...
• this was only the beginning of Clausius's long involvement in the study of the second law.
• Clausius restated Sadi Carnot's principle of the efficiency of heat engines in his work.
• The Clausius-Clapeyron equation appears which expresses the relation between the pressure and temperature at which two phases of a substance are in equilibrium.
• Still without giving the concept a name Clausius formulated, in a memoir of 1854, the rudiments of the theory of the concept of the measure of transformation equivalence he later called entropy.
• In his paper of 1865 Clausius stated the First and Second laws of thermodynamics in the following form.
• We have referred above to the great patriotism shown by Clausius.
• Clausius was very critical that a German had been the first to establish the result, not the Englishman Joule.
• Clausius stumbled into the controversy quite accidentally when Tyndall had asked him to send him all von Mayer's papers.
• However Clausius then published an article in 1868 stating that not only did von Mayer have priority but so did the German nation.
• A more bitter dispute between Tait and Clausius began in 1872 when Maxwell published Theory of Heat.
• Clausius stated that the British were trying to claim more than they deserved for the theory of heat which, Clausius said, he alone was the discoverer.
• One would have to add that Maxwell had, over a number of years, fully recognised Clausius's contribution, so he had little grounds for the complaint.
• The sadness of the situation was the effect that Clausius's attitude had on his own achievements.
• Some historians claim that Clausius made more use of the ideas of others than he was prepared to admit.
• our purpose is to make sense of what Clausius did in this long endeavour.
• We must not give the impression that Clausius's work was not of outstanding importance for it most certainly was.
• Clausius replied to the criticisms but saying that his absolute velocity was relative to the medium surrounding the charge.
• Clausius received many honours for his work.

Born 2 January 1822, Koslin, Prussia (now Koszalin, Poland). Died 24 August 1888, Bonn, Germany.

View full biography at MacTutor

Tags relevant for this person:

Origin Poland, Physics

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

Github:

non-Github:

@J-J-O'Connor

@E-F-Robertson

References

Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:

1. O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive