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Ilya Prigogine and the Irreversibility of Time

Ilya Prigogine and the Irreversibility of Time

Harald Sack
On January 25, 1917, Belgian physical chemist and Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine was born. He is noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. The main theme of Prigogine‘s work was the search for a better understanding of the role of time in the physical sciences and in biology. He attempted to reconcile a tendency in nature for disorder to increase with so-called “self-organisation“. “The problem of time in physics…
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chemistry
Henry Cavendish and the Weight of the Earth

Henry Cavendish and the Weight of the Earth

Tabea Tietz
On October 10, 1731, British natural philosopher Henry Cavendish was born. A scientist as well as an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist, Cavendish is noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called “inflammable air“. Most notably, he determined the mass and density of the Earth. Henry Cavendish Henry Cavendish was born in Nice and attended a private school near London. He enrolled the University of Cambridge, but left without…
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engineering
Robert Fulton and the Steamship Company

Robert Fulton and the Steamship Company

Harald Sack
On August, 17, 1807, the Clermont began a regular passenger service between New York City and Albany as the very first commercially operating steam boat constructed by Robert Fulton. The Steam Age Revolution From the invention of a new power source or engine up to a vehicle that applies this power source to move forward sometimes is only a small step. But, to become a commercial success, this step might take even…
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physics
Nicolas Sadi Carnot and the Science of Thermodynamics

Nicolas Sadi Carnot and the Science of Thermodynamics

Harald Sack
On June 1, 1796, French military engineer and physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot was born. He is often described as the “father of thermodynamics“. In particular, Carnot gave the first successful theory of the maximum efficiency of heat engines. Carnot’s work attracted little attention during his lifetime, but it was later used by Rudolf Clausius and Lord Kelvin to formalize the second law of thermodynamics and define the concept of entropy. Carnot Background Sadi…
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physics
Rudolf Clausius and the Science of Thermodynamics

Rudolf Clausius and the Science of Thermodynamics

Tabea Tietz
On January 2, 1822, German physicist and mathematician Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius was born. He is considered one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics, who introduced the concept of entropy in 1865. “If for the entire universe we conceive the same magnitude to be determined, consistently and with due regard to all circumstances, which for a single body I have called entropy, and if at the same time we introduce…
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physics
Johannes van der Waals – A Pioneer in the Molecular Sciences

Johannes van der Waals – A Pioneer in the Molecular Sciences

Tabea Tietz
On November 23, 1837 Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Johannes Diderik van der Waals was born. He is best known for his work on an equation of state for gases and liquids. “…There can be no doubt that the name of Van der Waals will soon be among the foremost in molecular science”  — James Clerk Maxwell’s remarks in Nature magazine (1873). Johannes van der Waals Background Johannes Diderik van der Waals…
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inventor
Carl von Linde’s Breakthrough in the Refrigeration Process

Carl von Linde’s Breakthrough in the Refrigeration Process

Tabea Tietz
On June 11, 1842, German scientist, engineer, and businessman Carl von Linde was born. Von Linde discovered a refrigeration cycle and invented the first industrial-scale air separation and gas liquefaction processes. These breakthroughs laid the backbone for his 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics. Cotton-Spinning, Locomotive Factory, and Technical University Born in Berndorf, Germany as the son of a German-born minister and Swedish mother, Carl von Linde was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps, but…
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physics
Josef Stefan’s – Black Bodies and Thermodynamic Temperature

Josef Stefan’s – Black Bodies and Thermodynamic Temperature

Harald Sack
On March 24, 1835, Carinthian Slovene physicist, mathematician, and poet Josef Stefan was born. Stefan is best known for originating Stefan’s law in 1879, a physical power law stating that the total radiation from a black body is proportional to the fourth power of its thermodynamic temperature T. As long as you are not a physicist specialized in black body radiation, you probably have never heard of Josef Stefan. For me as a computer…
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chemistry
William Francis Giauque and the Absolute Zero

William Francis Giauque and the Absolute Zero

Tabea Tietz
On May 12, 1895, American chemist and Nobel laureate William Francis Giauque was born. Giauque received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1949 for his “achievements in the field of chemical thermodynamics and especially his work on the behavior of matter at very low temperatures and his closely allied studies of entropy.” William Francis Giauque William Francis Giauque attended the Niagara Falls Collegiate Institute and after graduating he decided to pursue a…
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computer science

Rolf Landauer and the Landauer Principle

Harald Sack
On February 4, 1927, German-American physicist Rolf William Landauer was born. Landauer made important contributions in diverse areas of the thermodynamics of information processing, condensed matter physics, and the conductivity of disordered media. He is probably best known for the formulation of the eponymous Landauer Principle concerning the energy used during a computer‘s operation. “We shall call a device logically irreversible if the output of a device does not uniquely define the…
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