Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius
- Born:
- January 2, 1822, Köslin, Province of Pomerania, Prussia (now Koszalin, Poland)
- Died:
- August 24, 1888, Bonn, German Empire
- Nationality:
- Prussian, later German
- Profession(s):
- Physicist, Mathematician
Early Life and Education
- Born Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius in Köslin (Koszalin), Prussia.
- Received early education at his father's school.
- Studied at the University of Berlin from 1840 to 1844.
- Earned a doctorate from the University of Halle in 1847.
Career and Major Achievements
- Lecturer in physics at the Royal Artillery and Engineering School in Berlin (1850-1855).
- Professor of Physics at the ETH Zurich (1855-1867).
- Professor of Physics at the University of Würzburg (1867-1869).
- Professor of Physics at the University of Bonn (1869-1888).
- Introduced the concept of entropy in 1865.
- One of the founders of thermodynamics.
- Formulated the second law of thermodynamics in a quantitative form.
Notable Works
- Über die bewegende Kraft der Wärme (1850) - On the Moving Force of Heat, presenting a revised form of the Carnot cycle.
- Introduced the term "entropy" (from the Greek word for "transformation") to describe the degree of disorder in a system.
Legacy and Impact
Rudolf Clausius made substantial contributions to the field of thermodynamics. His work on entropy and the second law of thermodynamics revolutionized the understanding of energy and its transformations, and his findings have lasting implications in physics, chemistry, and engineering. Any analysis of the achievements that define the history of physics will reveal the critical importance of the work described in this Rudolf Clausius biography.