Timeline of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and random processes
- 1761 – Joseph Black discovers that ice absorbs heat without changing
temperature when melting - 1798 – Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) has the idea that heat is a
form of energy - 1822 – Joseph Fourier formally introduces the use of dimensions for
physical quantities in his Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur - 1824 – Sadi Carnot scientifically analyzes the efficiency of steam
engines - 1827 – Robert Brown discovers the Brownian motion of pollen and dye
particles in water - 1834 – ƒmile Clapeyron presents a formulation of the second law of
thermodynamics - 1843 – James Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of
heat - 1848 – Lord Kelvin discovers the absolute zero point of temperature
- 1852 – James Joule and Lord Kelvin demonstrate that a rapidly expanding
gas cools - 1859 – James Clerk Maxwell discovers the distribution law of molecular
velocities - 1870 – Rudolph Clausius proves the scalar virial theorem
- 1872 – Ludwig Boltzmann states the Boltzmann equation for the temporal
development of distribution functions in phase space - 1874 – Lord Kelvin formally states the second law of thermodynamics
- 1876 – Josiah Gibbs begins a two-year-long series of papers which
discusses phase equilibria, the free energy as the driving force behind
chemical reactions, and chemical thermodynamics in general - 1879 – Jo?ef Stefan observes that the total radiant flux from a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of its temperature and states the Stefan-Boltzmann law
- 1884 – Ludwig Boltzmann derives the Stefan-Boltzmann blackbody radiant
flux law from thermodynamic considerations - 1888 – Henri-Louis Le Chatelier states that the response of a chemical
system perturbed from equilbrium will be to counteract the perturbation - 1893 – Wilhelm Wien discovers the displacement law for a blackbody’s
maximum specific intensity - 1905 – Albert Einstein mathematically analyzes the Brownian motion
- 1906 – Walther Nernst presents a formulation of the third law of
thermodynamics - 1910 – Albert Einstein and Marian Smoluchowski find the
Einstein-Smoluchowski formula for the attenuation coefficient due to
density fluctuations in a gas - 1916 – Sydney Chapman and David Enskog systematically develop a kinetic
theory of gases - 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
- 1923 – Pieter Debye and Erich Huckel publish a statistical treatment of
the dissociation of electrolytes - 1928 – J.B. Johnson discovers Johnson noise in a resistor
- 1928 – Harry Nyquist derives the fluctuation-dissipation relationship
for a resistor to explain Johnson noise - 1942 – J.L. Doob states his theorem on Gaussian-Markoff processes
- 1957 – A.S. Kompaneets derives his Compton scattering Fokker-Planck
equation
