TCE     
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The Chemical Educator
ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)
Abstract Volume 5
Issue 2 (2000) pp 83-87
Benoit Paul Emile Clapeyron: A Short Bibliographical Sketch
Jaime Wisniak
Department of Chemical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
Published online: 2 April 2000
Abstract. Clapeyron is well known in thermodynamics through the Clausius-Clapeyron equation that describes the variation of the vapor pressure with temperature; few are aware that he made his career as a railroad engineer and locomotive designer. Here we give a description of his life and his scientific and professional achievements as an engineer in a turbulent epoch in the history of France and Russia. It is shown that Clapeyron was able to develop his equation without making use of the second law and the concepts of absolute temperature and entropy, ideas unknown in his time.
Key Words: Chemistry and History; thermodynamics
(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: wisniak@bgumail.bgu.ac.il )
Article in PDF format (217 KB) HTML format
Issue date: April
2, 2000
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