Elias Gyftopoulos

{{short description|Greek-American thermodynamicist}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Elias Panayiotis

| birth_date = {{birth date|1927|7|4|df=y}}

| birth_place = Athens, Greece

| death_date = {{death date and age|2012|6|23|1927|7|4|df=y}}

| death_place = Lincoln, Massachusetts, United States

| citizenship = {{Plainlist|

• Greece
• United States (from 1963)

}}

| field = Thermodynamics
Energetics
Physics

| workplaces = Massachusetts Institute of Technology

| alma_mater = {{Plainlist|

• National Technical University of Athens
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

}}

}}

Elias Panayiotis Gyftopoulos ({{langx|el|Ηλίας Παναγιώτης Γυφτόπουλος}}; July 4, 1927{{spaced ndash}}June 23, 2012) was a Greek-American engineer who contributed to thermodynamics both in its general formulation and its quantum foundations.[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/obit-gyftopoulos.html Professor emeritus Elias P. Gyftopoulos dies at 84] at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; by Alissa Mallinson and Ilavenil Subbiah; published June 27, 2012; retrieved May 21, 2013

Gyftopoulos received an undergraduate degree in mechanical and electrical engineering in 1953 at the National Technical University of Athens, and a Doctor of Science degree in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958. At MIT, he initially focused on nuclear reactor safety and control. After meeting professors George N. Hatsopoulos and Joseph H. Keenan,{{cite book|last1=Hatsopoulos|first1=G. N.|last2=Keenan|first2=J. H.|title=Principles of General Thermodynamics|year=1982|orig-date=1st ed., Wiley, 1965|publisher=Krieger|isbn=978-0-471-35999-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x75HwAEACAAJ}} ISBN 9780471359999 his interests moved towards thermodynamics, in an attempt to give a consistent and rigorous exposition, free of the logical flaws and the limitations commonly associated with this discipline: his contribution culminated with reference textbook which completely reformulates the foundations of the subject, offering a general non-statistical definition of entropy applicable to both macroscopic and microscopic systems, both in equilibrium and in non-equilibrium states, and providing strong background and deep understanding of many applications in energy engineering for modern graduate curricula.{{cite book|last1=Gyftopoulos|first1=E. P.|last2=Beretta|first2=G. P.|title=Thermodynamics: Foundations and Applications|year=2005|orig-date=1st ed., Macmillan, 1991|publisher=Dover Publications|isbn=978-0-486-13518-2 |place=Mineola (New York) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9_uTbhw5eDIC}} ISBN 9780486135182 His research also pioneered the subject of quantum thermodynamics with an early effort to give a quantum basis to thermodynamics by means a physical theory unifying mechanics and thermodynamics.See, e.g.: https://quantum-thermodynamics.unibs.it or http://www.quantumthermodynamics.org