In science, Peter Mander (c.1955-) is an English-Danish physical chemist noted for his 2012-launched blog CarnotCycle, wherein in touches on topics surrounding the Carnot Cycle, classical thermodynamics, history, and physical chemistry, with some interjections into humanities implications, e.g. love, life, death, marriage, etc.
Overview
On 4 Aug 2012, Mander, in his “How Kelvin and Clausius discovered Carnot’s ideas” (Ѻ), wherein he cites William Thomson as stating in Oct 1848 that he first became of Sadi Carnot’s theory via the 1837 translation of Emile Clapeyron’s memoir on Carnot (see: Thomson’s search for Carnot’s Reflections), and how Clausius became aware of Carnot via Thomson.
On 1 Dec 2012, Mander, in his “On Reading Gibbs” (Ѻ), commented on the John Strutt and Gibbs communications on the density of Gibbs Equilibrium:
The original two-volume set (Ѻ) of Pareto’s Trattato di Sociologia generale (1916).
“Your Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances is too condensed and too difficult for most, I might say all, readers.”
— John Strutt (1892), letter to Gibbs, Jun 5
“I myself had come to the conclusion that the fault was that it was too long. I do not think that I had any sense of the value of time, of my own or others, when I wrote it.”
— Willard Gibbs (1892), reply letter to Johann Strutt, Jun 27
On 1 Feb 2013, Mander, in his “Rankine on Entropy, Love and Marriage” (Ѻ), blogged on firstly on Rankine’s version of the new heat function, a variant of what Clausius would eventually call entropy, and secondly on Rankine’s circa 1845 “The Mathematician in Love”, about which he commented:
“Rankine never found the time to test this theory in practice. He died a bachelor on Christmas Eve 1872, at the age of 52, of overwork.”
Mander has blogged on other related topics, e.g. Legendre transform, Thomsen-Berthelot principle, exact differential vs inexact differential, and connective humanities implications, e.g. thermodynamics in respect to “life” (Ѻ) and “death” (Ѻ), Gibbs on entropy as mixed-up-ness (Ѻ) , among other topics.
Library
Mander, in his blog, has a “library” (Ѻ) dropmenu section, wherein he lists noted thermodynamics-related books, namely: Sadi Carnot (1824), James Maxwell (1873), Rudolf Clausius (1879), Max Planck (1897), Edgar Buckingham (1900), G.H. Bryan (1907), James Partington (1913), Gilbert Lewis (1923), Edward Guggenheim (1933), Enrico fermi (1936), Paul Epstein (1937), and Henry Margenau and George Murphy (1943), many via appealing greenery-background visual artwork; some of which are shown below:
Mander, in his blog, has a “library” (Ѻ) dropmenu section, wherein he lists noted thermodynamics-related books, many via appealing visual artwork; some of which are shown below; along his funny "not now honey I'm reading Gibbs" image, which is reminiscent of the 1885 Thomson wife anecdote, wherein, while musing upon the subject of thermodynamics one day, William Thomson suddenly realized that his wife was discussing plans for an afternoon excursion, to which he replied: [2]
“At what time,” he asked, glancing up, “does the dissipation of energy begin?”
(add discussion)
Religion
Mander seemingly as some type of Christianity belief affiliation, being that, as he states (Ѻ), he buys some of his thermodynamics books, at his local church book drives.
Education
Mander describes himself as a physical chemist by training with a keen interest in classical thermodynamics and its historical development. [1]
References
1. (a) About – CarnotCycle, WordPress.
(b) Peter Mander – Gravatar.
2. (a) Cleveland, Cutler J., and Morris, Chris. (2006). Dictionary of Energy (“At what time does the dissipation of energy begin?” —William Thomson (1885; applying the terminology of his studies of thermodynamics to a question for his wife about their plans for an afternoon walk), pg. 497). Elsevier.
(b) Bell, Eric T. (1999). Men of Mathematics. Turtleback Books.
(c) Entropy (Kelvin) – Anecdotage.com.
