timeline of thermodynamics

{{short description|None}}

{{More citations needed|date=August 2010}}

{{Thermodynamics|cTopic=History Culture}}

A timeline of events in the history of thermodynamics.

Before 1800

  • 1593 – Galileo Galilei invents one of the first thermoscopes, also known as Galileo thermometer{{Cite web |title=Who Gets Credit for Inventing the Thermometer? |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/the-history-of-the-thermometer-1992525 |access-date=2023-11-23 |website=ThoughtCo |language=en}}
  • 1650 – Otto von Guericke builds the first vacuum pump
  • 1660 – Robert Boyle experimentally discovers Boyle's law, relating the pressure and volume of a gas (published 1662)In 1662, he published a second edition of the 1660 book New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects with an addendum Whereunto is Added a Defence of the Authors Explication of the Experiments, Against the Obiections of Franciscus Linus and Thomas Hobbes; see J Appl Physiol 98: 31–39, 2005. ([http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/98/1/31 Jap.physiology.org Online].)
  • 1665 – Robert Hooke published his book Micrographia, which contained the statement: "Heat being nothing else but a very brisk and vehement agitation of the parts of a body."{{Cite book |last=Hooke |first=Robert |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15491/15491-h/15491-h.htm |title=Micrographia: Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon |publisher=Printed by Jo. Martyn, and Ja. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society |year=1665 |pages=12 |postscript=. (Machine-readable, no pagination)}}{{Cite book |last=Hooke |first=Robert |url=https://ttp.royalsociety.org/ttp/ttp.html?id=a9c4863d-db77-42d1-b294-fe66c85958b3&type=book |title=Micrographia: Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon |publisher=Printed by Jo. Martyn, and Ja. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society |year=1665 |pages=12 |postscript=. (Facsimile, with pagination)}}
  • 1667 – J. J. Becher puts forward a theory of combustion involving combustible earth in his book Physica subterranea{{Cite book|last=Becher, Johann Joachim, 1635-1682.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/3425904|title=Physica subterranea profundam subterraneorum genesin, e principiis hucusque ignotis, ostendens|date=1738|publisher=Ex officina Weidmanniana|oclc=3425904}} (see Phlogiston theory).
  • 1676–1689 – Gottfried Leibniz develops the concept of vis viva, a limited version of the conservation of energy
  • 1679 – Denis Papin designed a steam digester which inspired the development of the piston-and-cylinder steam engine.
  • 1694–1734 – Georg Ernst Stahl names Becher's combustible earth as phlogiston and develops the theory
  • 1698 – Thomas Savery patents an early steam engine{{cite book | last = Jenkins | first = Rhys | title = Links in the History of Engineering and Technology from Tudor Times | publisher = Ayer Publishing | year = 1936 | pages = 66 | isbn = 0-8369-2167-4}}
  • 1702 – Guillaume Amontons introduces the concept of absolute zero, based on observations of gases
  • 1738 – Daniel Bernoulli publishes Hydrodynamica, initiating the kinetic theory
  • 1749 – Émilie du Châtelet, in her French translation and commentary on Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, derives the conservation of energy from the first principles of Newtonian mechanics.
  • 1761 – Joseph Black discovers that ice absorbs heat without changing its temperature when melting
  • 1772 – Black's student Daniel Rutherford discovers nitrogen,See:
  • Daniel Rutherford (1772) [https://books.google.com/books?id=JxUUAAAAQAAJ "Dissertatio Inauguralis de aere fixo, aut mephitico"] (Inaugural dissertation on the air [called] fixed or mephitic), M.D. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
  • English translation: Leonard Dobbin (1935) "Daniel Rutherford's inaugural dissertation," Journal of Chemical Education, 12 (8) : 370–375.
  • See also: James R. Marshall and Virginia L. Marshall (Spring 2015) "Rediscovery of the Elements: Daniel Rutherford, nitrogen, and the demise of phlogiston," The Hexagon (of Alpha Chi Sigma), 106 (1) : 4–8. Available on-line at: [https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc824866/m2/1/high_res_d/spring-2015-4-8.pdf University of North Texas].{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yS_m3PrVbpgC&pg=PR15|page=15|title=Elements of chemistry, in a new systematic order: containing all the modern discoveries|author=Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent|author-link=Antoine Lavoisier|publisher=Courier Dover Publications|year=1965|isbn=0-486-64624-6}} which he calls phlogisticated air, and together they explain the results in terms of the phlogiston theory
  • 1776 – John Smeaton publishes a paper on experiments related to power, work, momentum, and kinetic energy, supporting the conservation of energy
  • 1777 – Carl Wilhelm Scheele distinguishes heat transfer by thermal radiation from that by convection and conduction
  • 1783 – Antoine Lavoisier discovers oxygen and develops an explanation for combustion; in his paper "Réflexions sur le phlogistique", he deprecates the phlogiston theory and proposes a caloric theory
  • 1784 – Jan Ingenhousz describes Brownian motion of charcoal particles on water
  • 1791 – Pierre Prévost shows that all bodies radiate heat, no matter how hot or cold they are{{Cite journal|last=Prévost|first=Pierre|date=April 1791|title=Mémoire sur l'équilibre du feu|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ZLOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA314|journal=Observations Sur la Physique|language=fr|volume=XXXVIII|issue=1|pages=314–323}}
  • 1798 – Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) publishes his paper "An Inquiry Concerning the Source of the Heat Which Is Excited by Friction" detailing measurements of the frictional heat generated in boring cannons and develops the idea that heat is a form of kinetic energy; his measurements are inconsistent with caloric theory, but are also sufficiently imprecise as to leave room for doubt.

1800–1847

  • 1802 – Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac publishes Charles's law, discovered (but unpublished) by Jacques Charles around 1787; this shows the dependency between temperature and volume. Gay-Lussac also formulates the law relating temperature with pressure (the pressure law, or Gay-Lussac's law)
  • 1804 – Sir John Leslie observes that a matte black surface radiates heat more effectively than a polished surface, suggesting the importance of black-body radiation
  • 1805 – William Hyde Wollaston defends the conservation of energy in On the Force of Percussion
  • 1808 – John Dalton defends caloric theory in A New System of Chemistry and describes how it combines with matter, especially gases; he proposes that the heat capacity of gases varies inversely with atomic weight
  • 1810 – Sir John Leslie freezes water to ice artificially
  • 1813 – Peter Ewart supports the idea of the conservation of energy in his paper On the measure of moving force; the paper strongly influences Dalton and his pupil, James Joule
  • 1819 – Pierre Louis Dulong and Alexis Thérèse Petit give the Dulong-Petit law for the specific heat capacity of a crystal
  • 1820 – John Herapath develops some ideas in the kinetic theory of gases but mistakenly associates temperature with molecular momentum rather than kinetic energy; his work receives little attention other than from Joule
  • 1822 – Joseph Fourier formally introduces the use of dimensions for physical quantities in his Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur
  • 1822 – Marc Seguin writes to John Herschel supporting the conservation of energy and kinetic theory
  • 1824 – Sadi Carnot analyzes the efficiency of steam engines using caloric theory; he develops the notion of a reversible process and, in postulating that no such thing exists in nature, lays the foundation for the second law of thermodynamics, and initiating the science of thermodynamics
  • 1827 – Robert Brown discovers the Brownian motion of pollen and dye particles in water {{Cite book|last=Brown, Robert, 1773-1858.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/38057036|title=A brief account of microscopical observations made in the months of June, July, and August, 1827, on the particles contained in the pollen of plants: and on the general existence of active molecules in organic and inorganic bodies ...|date=1828|publisher=A. and C. Black|oclc=38057036}}
  • 1831 – Macedonio Melloni demonstrates that black-body radiation can be reflected, refracted, and polarised in the same way as light
  • 1834 – Émile Clapeyron popularises Carnot's work through a graphical and analytic formulation. He also combined Boyle's law, Charles's law, and Gay-Lussac's law to produce a combined gas law. PV/T = k {{Cite book|last=CLAPEYRON, Benoît Paul Émile.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/559435201|title=Mémoire sur la puissance motrice de la chaleur.|date=1834|oclc=559435201}}
  • 1841 – Julius Robert von Mayer, an amateur scientist, writes a paper on the conservation of energy, but his lack of academic training leads to its rejection
  • 1842 – Mayer makes a connection between work, heat, and the human metabolism based on his observations of blood made while a ship's surgeon; he calculates the mechanical equivalent of heat
  • 1842 – William Robert Grove demonstrates the thermal dissociation of molecules into their constituent atoms, by showing that steam can be disassociated into oxygen and hydrogen, and the process reversed
  • 1843 – John James Waterston fully expounds the kinetic theory of gases,{{Cite book|last=Waterston, John J.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/328092289|title=Thoughts on the mental functions : being an attempt to treat metaphysics as a branch of the physiology of the nervous system.|date=1843|publisher=London|oclc=328092289}} but according to D Levermore "there is no evidence that any physical scientist read the book; perhaps it was overlooked because of its misleading title, Thoughts on the Mental Functions."{{Cite web|title=Neglected Pioneers|url=https://www.math.umd.edu/~lvrmr/History/Neglected.html|access-date=2020-12-20|website=www.math.umd.edu}}
  • 1843 – James Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of heat {{Cite journal|last=Joule|first=J.P.|date=1843|title=LII. On the calorific effects of magneto-electricity, and on the mechanical value of heat|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786444308644766|journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science|language=en|volume=23|issue=154|pages=435–443|doi=10.1080/14786444308644766|issn=1941-5966}}
  • 1845 – Henri Victor Regnault added Avogadro's law to the combined gas law to produce the ideal gas law. PV = nRT
  • 1846 – Grove publishes an account of the general theory of the conservation of energy in On The Correlation of Physical Forces {{Cite book|last=Grove|first=W. R.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.19475|title=The correlation of physical forces (6th edition) by W.R. Grove.|date=1874|publisher=Longmans, Green|location=London|doi=10.5962/bhl.title.19475}}
  • 1847 – Hermann von Helmholtz publishes a definitive statement of the conservation of energy, the first law of thermodynamics{{Cite book|last=Helmholtz, Hermann v.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/488622067|title=Über die Erhaltung der Kraft, eine physikalische Abhandlung|date=1847|oclc=488622067}}

1848–1899

1900–1944

  • 1900 – Max Planck suggests that light may be emitted in discrete frequencies, giving his law of black-body radiation{{Cite book|last=Planck, Max, 1858-1947.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/15745309|title=Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum|oclc=15745309}}
  • 1905 – Albert Einstein, in the first of his miracle year papers, argues that the reality of quanta would explain the photoelectric effect{{Cite journal|last=Einstein|first=Albert|date=1905|title=On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light|url=https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/lectures/Rotman_Summer_School_2013/Einstein_1905_docs/Einstein_Light_Quantum_WikiSource.pdf|journal=Annalen der Physik (In German)}}
  • 1905 – Einstein mathematically analyzes Brownian motion as a result of random molecular motion in his paper On the movement of small particles suspended in a stationary liquid demanded by the molecular-kinetic theory of heat
  • 1906 – Nernst presents a formulation of the third law of thermodynamics
  • 1907 – Einstein uses quantum theory to estimate the heat capacity of an Einstein solid
  • 1909 – Constantin Carathéodory develops an axiomatic system of thermodynamics {{cite journal |last1=Pogliani |first1=Lionello |last2=Berberan-Santos |first2=Mario |title=Constantin Carathéodory and the axiomatic thermodynamics |journal=Journal of Mathematical Chemistry |date=2000 |volume=28 |issue=1 |page=313 |doi=10.1023/A:1018834326958 |s2cid=17244147 |url=https://link-springer-com.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu/content/pdf/10.1023/A:1018834326958.pdf |access-date=May 30, 2022}}
  • 1910 – Einstein and Marian Smoluchowski find the Einstein–Smoluchowski formula for the attenuation coefficient due to density fluctuations in a gas
  • 1911 – Paul Ehrenfest and Tatjana Ehrenfest–Afanassjewa publish their classical review on the statistical mechanics of Boltzmann, Begriffliche Grundlagen der statistischen Auffassung in der Mechanik
  • 1912 – Peter Debye gives an improved heat capacity estimate by allowing low-frequency phonons{{cite journal |first=Peter |last=Debye |title=Zur Theorie der spezifischen Waerme |language=de|journal=Annalen der Physik |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=789–839 |year=1912 |doi= 10.1002/andp.19123441404 |bibcode = 1912AnP...344..789D |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1424256 }}
  • 1916 – Sydney Chapman and David Enskog systematically develop the kinetic theory of gases
  • 1916 – Einstein considers the thermodynamics of atomic spectral lines and predicts stimulated emission
  • 1919 – James Jeans discovers that the dynamical constants of motion determine the distribution function for a system of particles
  • 1920 – Meghnad Saha states his ionization equation{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/14786441008636148|title=LIII.Ionization in the solar chromosphere|year=1920|last1=Saha|first1=Megh Nad|journal=Philosophical Magazine |series=Series 6|volume=40|issue=238|pages=472–488|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1430870}}
  • 1923 – Debye and Erich Hückel publish a statistical treatment of the dissociation of electrolytes
  • 1924 – Satyendra Nath Bose introduces Bose–Einstein statistics, in a paper translated by Einstein
  • 1926 – Enrico Fermi{{cite journal| title=Sulla quantizzazione del gas perfetto monoatomico| journal=Rendiconti Lincei| language=it| year=1926| first=Enrico| last=Fermi| volume=3| pages=145–9}}, translated as {{cite arXiv| title=On the Quantization of the Monoatomic Ideal Gas| eprint=cond-mat/9912229| date=1999-12-14 | last1=Zannoni| first1=Alberto}} and Paul Dirac{{cite journal| title=On the Theory of Quantum Mechanics| journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society A| year=1926| first=Paul A. M.| last=Dirac| author-link=Paul Dirac| volume=112| issue=762| pages=661–77| jstor=94692| doi=10.1098/rspa.1926.0133 |bibcode = 1926RSPSA.112..661D | doi-access=free}} introduce Fermi–Dirac statistics
  • 1927 – John von Neumann introduces the density matrix representation,{{Citation | last = von Neumann | first = John | year = 1927 | author-link = John von Neumann |title=Wahrscheinlichkeitstheoretischer Aufbau der Quantenmechanik | journal = Göttinger Nachrichten | volume = 1|pages= 245–272|url=https://eudml.org/doc/59230}} establishing quantum statistical mechanics
  • 1928 – John B. Johnson discovers Johnson noise in a resistor {{Cite journal |doi = 10.1103/PhysRev.29.350|title = Minutes of the Philadelphia Meeting December 28, 29, 30, 1926|journal = Physical Review|volume = 29|issue = 2|pages = 350–373|year = 1927|last1 = Anonymous|bibcode = 1927PhRv...29..350.}}{{cite journal|first=J.|last=Johnson|title=Thermal Agitation of Electricity in Conductors|journal= Physical Review|volume=32|pages=97–109|number=97|date=1928|doi=10.1103/physrev.32.97|bibcode=1928PhRv...32...97J}}
  • 1928 – Harry Nyquist derives the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, a relationship to explain Johnson noise in a resistor {{cite journal | author = Nyquist H |author-link = Harry Nyquist | year = 1928 | title = Thermal Agitation of Electric Charge in Conductors | journal = Physical Review | volume = 32 |issue = 1 | pages = 110–113 | bibcode = 1928PhRv...32..110N | doi = 10.1103/PhysRev.32.110 }}
  • 1931 – Lars Onsager publishes his groundbreaking paper deriving the Onsager reciprocal relations{{cite journal | last=Onsager | first=Lars | title=Reciprocal Relations in Irreversible Processes. I. | journal=Physical Review | publisher=American Physical Society (APS) | volume=37 | issue=4 | date=1931-02-15 | issn=0031-899X | doi=10.1103/physrev.37.405 | pages=405–426| bibcode=1931PhRv...37..405O |doi-access=free}}
  • 1935 – Ralph H. Fowler invents the title 'the zeroth law of thermodynamics' to summarise postulates made by earlier physicists that thermal equilibrium between systems is a transitive relation
  • 1938 – Anatoly Vlasov proposes the Vlasov equation for a correct dynamical description of ensembles of particles with collective long range interaction{{cite journal|author=A. A. Vlasov|title=On Vibration Properties of Electron Gas|journal=J. Exp. Theor. Phys.|volume=8|pages=291|date=1938|url= http://ufn.ru/ru/articles/1967/11/f/|language=ru|issue=3}}{{cite journal|author=A. A. Vlasov|title=The Vibrational Properties of an Electron Gas|journal=Soviet Physics Uspekhi| volume=10| pages=721–733|date=1968|url= http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0038-5670/10/6/R01|doi=10.1070/PU1968v010n06ABEH003709|issue=6|bibcode = 1968SvPhU..10..721V |s2cid=122952713 |url-access=subscription}}
  • 1939 – Nikolay Krylov and Nikolay Bogolyubov give the first consistent microscopic derivation of the Fokker–Planck equation in the single scheme of classical and quantum mechanics N. N. Bogolyubov Jr. and D. P. Sankovich (1994). "N. N. Bogolyubov and statistical mechanics". Russian Math. Surveys 49(5): 19—49. {{doi|10.1070/RM1994v049n05ABEH002419}}N. N. Bogoliubov and N. M. Krylov (1939). Fokker–Planck equations generated in perturbation theory by a method based on the spectral properties of a perturbed Hamiltonian. Zapiski Kafedry Fiziki Akademii Nauk Ukrainian SSR 4: 81–157 (in Ukrainian).
  • 1942 – Joseph L. Doob states his theorem on Gauss–Markov processes
  • 1944 – Lars Onsager gives an analytic solution to the 2-dimensional Ising model, including its phase transition{{Cite journal|last=Onsager|first=Lars|date=1944-02-01|title=Crystal Statistics. I. A Two-Dimensional Model with an Order-Disorder Transition|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physrev.65.117|journal=Physical Review|volume=65|issue=3–4|pages=117–149|doi=10.1103/physrev.65.117|bibcode=1944PhRv...65..117O|issn=0031-899X|url-access=subscription}}

1945–present

  • 1945–1946 – Nikolay Bogoliubov develops a general method for a microscopic derivation of kinetic equations for classical statistical systems using BBGKY hierarchy{{cite journal|author=N. N. Bogoliubov|author-link=Nikolay Bogoliubov|title=Kinetic Equations|journal=Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics|volume=16|issue=8|pages=691–702|year=1946|language=ru}}{{cite journal|author=N. N. Bogoliubov|author-link=Nikolay Bogoliubov|title=Kinetic Equations|journal=Journal of Physics USSR|volume=10|issue=3|pages=265–274|year=1946}}
  • 1947 – Nikolay Bogoliubov and Kirill Gurov extend this method for a microscopic derivation of kinetic equations for quantum statistical systems
  • 1948 – Claude Elwood Shannon establishes information theory{{Cite book|last=Shannon, Claude Elwood, 1916-2001.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/967725093|title=The mathematical theory of communication|date=September 1998|isbn=978-0-252-09803-1|oclc=967725093}}
  • 1957 – Aleksandr Solomonovich Kompaneets derives his Compton scattering Fokker–Planck equation
  • 1957 – Ryogo Kubo derives the first of the Green-Kubo relations for linear transport coefficients {{Cite journal|last=Kubo|first=Ryogo|date=1957-06-15|title=Statistical-Mechanical Theory of Irreversible Processes. I. General Theory and Simple Applications to Magnetic and Conduction Problems|url=http://journals.jps.jp/doi/10.1143/JPSJ.12.570|journal=Journal of the Physical Society of Japan|language=en|volume=12|issue=6|pages=570–586|doi=10.1143/JPSJ.12.570|bibcode=1957JPSJ...12..570K |issn=0031-9015|url-access=subscription}}
  • 1957 – Edwin T. Jaynes publishes two papers detailing the MaxEnt interpretation of thermodynamics from information theory {{cite journal |author=Jaynes, E.T. |title=Information theory and statistical mechanics |journal=Physical Review |volume=106 |issue=4 |pages=620–630 |year=1957 |doi=10.1103/PhysRev.106.620 |url=http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/theory.1.pdf |bibcode=1957PhRv..106..620J}}{{cite journal |author=Jaynes, E.T. |author-mask=1 |title=Information theory and statistical mechanics II |journal=Physical Review |volume=108 |issue=2 |pages=171–190 |year=1957 |doi=10.1103/PhysRev.108.171 |url=http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/theory.2.pdf |bibcode=1957PhRv..108..171J}}
  • 1960–1965 – Dmitry Zubarev develops the method of non-equilibrium statistical operator, which becomes a classical tool in the statistical theory of non-equilibrium processes
  • 1972 – Jacob Bekenstein suggests that black holes have an entropy proportional to their surface area
  • 1974 – Stephen Hawking predicts that black holes will radiate particles with a black-body spectrum which can cause black hole evaporation
  • 1977 – Ilya Prigogine wins the Nobel prize for his work on dissipative structures in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium. The importation and dissipation of energy could reverse the 2nd law of thermodynamics

See also

References