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William John Macquorn Rankine
FRSE FRS
William John Macquorn Rankine
Born
(1820-07-05)5 July 1820
Edinburgh, Scotland
Died
24 December 1872(1872-12-24) (aged 52)
Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality
Scottish
Alma mater
University of Edinburgh
Known for
Rankine body
Rankine half body
Rankine cycle
Rankine's method
Rankine scale
Rankine theory
Rankine vortex
Rankine–Hugoniot relation
Laws of thermodynamics
Second law of thermodynamics
Entropy
Heat death of the universe
Kelvin’s heat death paradox
Coining the term 'potential energy'
Awards
Keith Medal (1854)
Scientific career
Fields
Physics, engineering, civil engineering
Institutions
University of Glasgow
William John Macquorn RankineFRSE FRS (/ˈræŋkɪn/; 5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on its First Law. He developed the Rankine scale, a Fahrenheit-based equivalent to the Celsius-based Kelvin scale of temperature.
Rankine developed a complete theory of the steam engine and indeed of all heat engines. His manuals of engineering science and practice were used for many decades after their publication in the 1850s and 1860s. He published several hundred papers and notes on science and engineering topics, from 1840 onwards, and his interests were extremely varied, including, in his youth, botany, music theory and number theory, and, in his mature years, most major branches of science, mathematics and engineering.
He was an enthusiastic amateur singer, pianist and cellist who composed his own humorous songs.[citation needed]
William John Macquorn Rankine FRSE FRS (/ˈræŋkɪn/; 5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist. He was a founding contributor...
Rankine is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: WilliamRankine (1820–1872), Scottish engineer and physicist Rankine body an elliptical...
(also flattened catenary, was defined by WilliamRankine as transformed catenary and thus sometimes called Rankine curve) is a catenary curve, but of a special...
of fluid dynamics, a Rankine half body is a feature of fluid flow discovered by Scottish physicist and engineer WilliamRankine that is formed when a...
was introduced by the 19th-century Scottish engineer and physicist WilliamRankine, although it has links to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's...
then elaborated over the next decade by Hermann von Helmholtz and WilliamRankine. The idea of the heat death of the universe derives from discussion...
moves between a heat source and heat sink. The Rankine cycle is named after William John Macquorn Rankine, a Scottish polymath professor at Glasgow University...
modern science. The first thermodynamic textbook was written in 1859 by WilliamRankine, originally trained as a physicist and a civil and mechanical engineering...
of an infinitely old universe; this paradox was later extended by WilliamRankine. In final publication, Thomson retreated from a radical departure and...
to the spectre of the heat death of the universe. In 1854, William John Macquorn Rankine started to make use of what he called thermodynamic function...
philosopher, and Catholic writer French Pascal 2016 WilliamRankine (1820-1872) Mechanical engineer Scottish Rankine 2003 Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) Inventor, electrical...
described "kinetic energy" in 1829 in its modern sense, and in 1853, WilliamRankine coined the term "potential energy". The law of conservation of energy...
Glasgow professor of natural philosophy William Thomson and his ally in the engineering science WilliamRankine began to replace the older language of...
thermodynamic concept was referred to by Scottish scientist and engineer WilliamRankine in 1850 with the names thermodynamic function and heat-potential. In...
the 1850s and 1860s by those such as Rudolf Clausius, WilliamRankine, Peter Tait, and William Thomson. By the 1870s, the term had acquired a use of its...
that proved useful for estimating stresses at depth in the ground. WilliamRankine, an engineer and physicist, developed an alternative to Coulomb's earth...
mechanical engineer WilliamRankine showed that the speed of sound is proportional to the square root of Poisson's γ: Rankine, William John Macquorn (1851)...
The Rankine vortex is a simple mathematical model of a vortex in a viscous fluid. It is named after its discoverer, William John Macquorn Rankine. The...
Rankine was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, the eldest son of sheep farmer WilliamRankine and his wife Jane, née Paterson. He migrated with his parents to South...
Thaw's wife, actress Evelyn Nesbit. In October long time investor WilliamRankine died of a heart attack. Things were so bad by the fall of that year...
principle stems from this publication. In 1850, the Scottish mathematician WilliamRankine first used the phrase the law of the conservation of energy for the...
the law came in 1850 from Rudolf Clausius, and from WilliamRankine. Some scholars consider Rankine's statement less distinct than that of Clausius. The...
Rankine's theory (maximum-normal stress theory), developed in 1857 by William John Macquorn Rankine, is a stress field solution that predicts active and...
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