Re: Clausius, heat, and authority

[palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)]

> > It is my understganding that "Clausius" is not his birth name.  Where does
> > the list suppose I could read a bit of history regarding his life and how
> > and why he changed his name???
>
> Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia lists his name as Rudolf Julius Emmanuel
> Clausius, born in Koslin, Pomerania (now Koszalin, Poland) in 1822.  No mention
> is given of any other name.

Goldstein's "Classical Mechanics" lists him simply as R. J. E. Clausius.
My Webster's Encyclopedic dictionary identifies him as Rudolf Julius
Emmanuel Clausius and gives his nationality as German.

I think the initial (apparently incorrect) impression arises because of
the western tradition of Latinizing the names of scholars. Before the
question was asked I would have guessed the same thing that Jim was told.
Clausius is evidently a Latin name, but apparently he did not Latinize
it himself.

Incidentally, it should be clear to everyone that textbooks are not good
primary sources for historical evidence. As we have seen in the
discussion of the non-topics of "heat flow" and "thermal energy" even
respected texts often are inconsistent in their technical presentations.
Being inconsistent means that in some places they must be incorrect.
Citation of *only* the incorrect passages in texts led to the silliest
posts in the "What flows?" discussion. In all of the texts cited it is
possible to support both sides of the argument with passages from these
"authorities". For example, if one reads the entire first section of
Chapter 4 of Sears's "Thermodynamics" it is clear that he does not support
the idea of anything flowing in his use of the term "a flow of heat"
(which he sets off in quotes). He makes it clear that the phrase is a
vestige of caloric theory, like the gram calorie and the BTU. All are
still used, but in my opinion none contributes valuably to the furtherance
of understanding by our students. My copies of Reif and of Zemansky and
Dittman are out on loan. They are two solid texts in my opinion (Reif is
excellent) and both suffer from the problem. Fermi is much clearer in his
definition, a virtue, I think, of a concise text. If one must refer to
the process of "energy transfer by the agency of heat" many times and
avoid the appearance of pedantry (something which does not seem to bother
mathematicians), then colloquialisms like "heat flow" will occasionally
creep into a prolix discourse. I find myself using it even though I know
it is incorrect.

Leigh