In human thermodynamics, human thermodynamics pioneers, as listed below, are those scientists and writers (68+) who over the last 200-years have contributed theory and logic to the understanding of the thermodynamics of human life.

“The fascination of a growing science lies in the work of the pioneers at the very borderland of the unknown, but to reach this frontier one must pass over well traveled roads; of these one of the safest and surest is the broad highway of thermodynamics”

Gilbert Lewis and Merle Randall, Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances [1]

In the years to follow the 1824 publication of Sadi Carnot's "On the Motive Power of Fire", which founded the science of thermodynamics itself, a small but growing number of people began to profess views on the potential thermodynamic logic of the operation of human life. Of those individuals, as shown grouped below, two are included in the list of people with a 200+ IQ. The following lists, to note, are not all-inclusive, as many pioneers remain lost or hidden in the various obscure books of history.

Pre-human thermodynamicists
In a loose sense, a pre-human thermodynamicist is any writer or scientist to have professed views or theories on the heat or energy animation of human life prior to 1824, the founding year of the science of thermodynamics. These individuals are listed below. Preeminent in his list is German polymath Johann von Goethe who outlined a human chemical reaction theory based on interpersonal chemical affinities:

1. Hippocrates (c. 420 BC) - postulated that “heat, a quantity which functions to animate, derives from an internal fire located in the left ventricle”.
2. Johann von Goethe (1809) - the original "human thermodynamicist" for his affinity (pre-free energy) theories of human chemistry.
3. John Herschel (1833) - held that heat is the motive force powering not only people but the planet.

Central pioneers
The following list shows those thermodynamicists, physicists, scientists and writers who, in some way or another, have published or professed their views on aspects of the thermodynamic operation of human life:

1. Hermann von Helmholtz (1847) - thermodynamically analyzed Goethe's Faust and helped to found "psychodynamics".
2. William Thomson (1852) - stated the "universal natural tendency to dissipation" (entropy) postulate and conceived of "heat death".
3. Gustave-Adolphe Hirn (1856) - conducted the first human thermo-dynamic experiments.
4. Brooks Adams (1895) - published his Law of Civilization and Decay arguing that history was governed by the laws of energetics.
5. Ludwig Boltzmann (1886) - outlined the view that "life is a struggle for entropy".
6. Vilfredo Pareto (1896) - developed social-economic theories modeled on Gibbs' On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances.
7. Wilhelm Ostwald (1907)
8. Felix Auerbach (1910) - coined the term "ectropy" as the evolving thermodynamic force of living form.
9. Henry Adams (1910) - used the "human molecule" concept and argued that history abides by the laws of thermodynamics.
10. William James Sidis (1920) - wrote his T.O.E. memoir The Animate and the Inanimate situated on the second law.
11. Howard Scott (1920s) - founded "technocracy" based on a Gibbsian social-economic theory.
12. James Johnstone (1921)
13. Vladimir Vernadsky (1926)
14. Ronald Fisher (1930) - outlined his views on the relations between entropy, fitness, and natural selection.
15. Erwin Schrödinger (1943) - reasoned that life "feeds on negative entropy".
16. Charles Galton Darwin (1952) - outlined a statistical thermodynamics theory of "human thermodynamics".
17. Claude Lévi-Strauss (1955) - outlined a theory of "entropology", the entropic study of anthropology.
18. Jack Kirkaldy (1965) - outlined a free energy minimization theory of brain growth and a thermodynamic terrestrial evolution theory.
19. Eugene Ruyle (1960s)
20. Robert Nisbet (1970) - outlined a theory of "social entropy" and the entropy aspects of the "social bond".
21. Frederick Rossini (1971) - outlined ideas on "political thermodynamics".
22. Rudolf Arnheim (1971) - published the book Entropy and Art, discussions on ordering tendencies of life and statistical disorder.
23. Howard Odum (1976)
24. Ilya Prigogine (1977) - developed a "dissipative structure theory" of life.
25. Dick Hammond (1978) - promoted an "entropy ethics" and energy education program.
26. Georgi Gladyshev (1978) - developed a "hierarchical thermodynamics" theory of evolution.
27. Elizabeth Porteus (1987) - developed a thermodynamic philosophy of happiness and life.
28. Eric Schneider (1988) - proposed that life thermodynamically evolved so to help "degrade the energy gradient".
29. Kenneth Bailey (1990)
30. Libb Thims (1995) - conceived the sciences of human chemistry and human chemical thermodynamics.
31. Erich Müller (1998) - conceived of a thermodynamic "dispersion forces" theory of society.
32. Lawrence Chin (1999) - outlined a thermodynamic-dissipation interpretation of history (history thermodynamics).
33. Karlis Ullis (1999) - outlined a human body theory of "human thermodynamics" and exercise physiology.
34. Valery Chalidize (2000) - outlined a loose theory on the relation between entropy, order, life, and money.
35. David Hwang (2001) - proposed a Gibbs free energy view of intimate human chemical reactions.
36. Ingo Müller (2002) - developed a phase diagram view of "socio-thermodynamics".
37. John Avery (2003)
38. Josip Stepanic (2004)
39. Lynn Liss (2005) - outlined a human thermodynamics based information technologies consulting theory.
40. Viktor Minkin (2007) - developed ideas on emotional imaging, fingerprints, and human thermodynamics.
41. John Schmitz (2007) - outlined a "second law of life" view of thermodynamics (see: laws of life).

Psychodynamic pioneeers
The following individuals contributed either ideas, theories and concepts in psychodynamics or on connections between psychology and thermodynamics:

1. Ernst von Brücke (1874) – published his energy-based Lectures on Psychology.
2. Sigmund Freud (1874) - founded psychodynamics or a thermodynamic theory of mental life based on subconscious drives.
3. Carl Jung (1928) - developed an entropic view of consciousness.

Economic thermodynamic pioneeers
The following individuals contributed either ideas, theories and concepts in economic thermodynamics or on connections between economics and thermodynamics:

1. Emanuele Sella (1910) - outlined a theory of "economic temperature", entropy, and specific heat of economic systems.
2. Frederick Soddy (1922) - outlined his views on the relations between wealth, energy, economics, and thermodynamics.
3. Jacques Rueff (1922) - argued that thermodynamics could be applied to economics.
4. Harold Davis (1941) - coined the term "economic entropy".
5. Paul Samuelson (1947)
6. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971) - developed a rudimentary second law theory of economic process.
7. Xenophon Zolotas (1981)
8. Jürgen Mimkes (1995) - formulated various economic and sociological thermodynamic theories.
9. Jing Chen (2002) - outlined an analytical economic thermodynamic information theory.
10. Dimitris Keranis (2005)
11. Octavian Ksenzhek (2007) - proposed a economic thermodynamics energy-entropy view of virtual money.

Residual pioneers
The follow individuals contributed either parts of theories, selected aspects of human thermodynamics, or used thermodynamics in an intermediate or point-in-case less-rigorous manner.

1. James Lovelock (1964) - outlined views on entropy and life-detection on other planets.
2. John von Neumann (1966) - postulated a free energy theory of self-replicating automatons.
3. Stuart Kauffman (1995) - outlined ideas on the relationships between evolution and thermodynamics.
4. Fritjof Capra (1996) - outlined a Prigoginean dissipative structure based theory of biospheric living systems.
5. Philip Parker (2000) - situated the conception of "physioeconomics".

Religiously-biased pioneers
Various individuals have supposed a religious thermodynamics view of existence, such as:

1. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1920s) - developed a "spiritual energy" theory of thermodynamic evolution.
2. Mehdi Bazargan (1950s) - developed a "thermodynamics of man" theory to explain Islam scientifically.
3. Morgan Scott Peck (1978) - outlined his view on entropy, evolution, evil, and love in his famous The Road Less Traveled.
4. Jeremy Rifkin (1980) - outlined a misapplied "material entropy" view of consumerism.
5. Robert Russell (1982) - outlined theories on the relation between entropy, disorder, and evil.
6. John Sanford (2005) - outlined the concept of "genetic entropy"

Information theory thermodynamic investigators
Several individuals, on the suggestive modellings of Erwin Schrödinger and John von Neumann, have been led along the path with the view that the "information" (bits) of computer systems and signal processing, defined by highs and lows (1s or 0s) of either voltage potentials or current flows, is the same as the "entropy" (dq/T), defined as lost system work-energy due to irreversible molecular interactions, of heat engines. These include:

1. Leo Szilard (1927) - devoted his thesis "On the Increase of Entropy in a Thermodynamical System by Action of Intelligent Beings" to Maxwell's demon.
2. Claude Shannon (1948) - used the term "entropy" (as a measure of information, choice, and uncertainty) in his information theory.
3. Norbert Wiener (1948) - outined an information-type energy-entropy based theory of "cybernetics".
4. Leon Brillouin (1950) - exorcised Maxwell's demon using a negentropy principle of information.

Other

1. Bertrand Russell (1920s) - promoted a dismal second law view of the future of human society.
2. Thomas Pynchon (1958) - wrote essays and books on the relation between entropy and culture.
3. Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968) - outline a "general system theory" thermodynamic view of living organisms.
4. Karl-Henrik Robèrt (1987) - developed the "natural step" program of a society towards sustainability based on the laws of thermodynamics.

See also

• Founders of human chemistry
• Founders of thermodynamics

References
1. (a) Lewis, Gilbert & Randall, Merle. (1923). Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances, (pg. x). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.
(b) Cavazox-Gaither A.E. (2002). Chemically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations, (section: “Thermodynamics”, pg. 428). CRC Press.