Clausius, Rudolf

Clausius, Rudolf, a great German physicist, born 2d January 1822 at Köslin in Pomerania. He studied at Berlin, and afterwards lectured on natural philosophy as privat-docent at Berlin, and as professor at the Zürich Polytechnic School. In 1869 he was appointed to the chair of Natural Philosophy at Bonn, and here he died, August 24, 1888. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1868, and in 1879 was given its highest honour, the Copley Medal. His scientific labours cover parts of the field of optics and of electricity, but his especial work was his contribution to the science of thermo-dynamics, the honour of establishing which on a scientific basis he divides with Rankine and Thomson. His mathematical methods he also applied to the theory of the steam-engine, the dynamical or kinetic theory of gases, and to electricity and electro-dynamics. His great work is his Abhandlungen über die mechanische Wärmetheorie (1864, and 1867), which in its second edition took a more systematic form as vol. i., Die mechanische Wärmetheorie (1876), and vol. ii., Die mechanische Behandlung der Electricität (1879). Other books are Ueber das Wesen der Wärme (1857), and Die Potentialfunction und das Potential (3d ed. 1877).