MacTutor
William Rankine
Times obituary
The death of Mr. William J. Macquorn Rankine, Professor of Engineering in the Glasgow University, announced on Tuesday morning, left a blank in many circles. For some time he had been suffering under an affection of the heart, but the immediate cause of his death was an attack of paralysis, under which he succumbed on Tuesday night, in the 52nd year of his age. Professor Rankine was the author of a number of erudite works connected with his particular branch of science, including a Manual of Applied Mechanics, a Manual of Steam Engine and other Prime Movers, Civil Engineering, Shipbuilding, Theoretical and Practical, a Manual of Machinery and Milling, &c., besides a variety of papers in the scientific journals, medicals and cyclopedias of the day. He held the degree of LL.D. from the Dublin University, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of many other learned bodies, besides being a consulting engineer to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. Yet with all his aptitude for dry mechanical study and speculation, and his great brilliance as a physicist, he had a rich, genial side to his character which rendered him the delight of the social circle. He took an active interest in the Volunteer movement and served for several years as a captain and major. Accomplished in poetry and music, he could both make his own poems and sing them, and his more devoted friends will remember at this time the two admirable lyrics, which appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine, illustrative of the old coaching and the modern railway days, -- Glasgow Citizen.
_________________________________________________
From a long notice of the late Professor Rankine of Glasgow, which appears in the Glasgow Herald of Saturday, we make the following extracts:
Glasgow University has lost in Rankine only an excellent man and an admirable Professor: she has lost a man of rare and original genius (to employ the word in its very highest sense) - one who was a maker or originator, and not a mere developer or commentator, like too many of our more popular celebrities. The number of Rankine's scientific papers seems absolutely enormous when we consider the minute and scrupulous care with which he attended to every point of detail in the writing and printing of them. In the Royal Society's splendid Catalogue of Scientific Papers, we find that from 1843 to 1864 (both inclusive) he published, in recognized scientific journals alone, upwards of 80 papers, many of these being exhaustive essays on mathematical or physical questions, and all, save one or two, containing genuine contributions to the advancement of science. Undoubtedly the greatest work of Rankine's is contained in his numerous papers bearing on the Dynamic Theory of Heat, and on Energy generally. As Sir William Thomson has remarked, even noted, even the mere title of test paper on this subject, Molecular Vortices, is an important contribution to physical science, The application of the doctrine, that heat and work are convertible, to the discovery of new relations among the properties of bodies was made about the same time by three scientific men—Thomson, Rankine, and Clausius. Rankine (late in 1819) and Clausius (early 1830) took the first step towards the formulation of a true theory of the action of heat on bodies by showing (by perfectly different methods of attacking the question) the nature of the modifications which Carnot's theory required. Thomson, in 1851, put the foundations of the theory in the form they have since retained. Rankine's researches on the general theory of elastic boilies are characterized by the fact that while, in laying the foundation of the theory, he confines himself to the use of rigorous methods and does not shrink from any mathematical difficulty in their application, he always prepares the way for the application of the results to practice by making the definitions so clear, the methods so simple, and the results so definite that they can be mastered by the exercise of a little thought, without special mathematical training. Rankine's works on Applied Mechanics, on the Steam Engine, and on Engineering contain many valuable and original methods, and while the publication of any one of them would have established the fame of one of our average scientific men, that on the steam engine simply could not have been produced by any but an original discoverer of a very high order.
Of the man himself it is not easy to speak in terms which, to a stranger, would appear unexaggerated. His appearance was striking and prepossessing in the extreme, and his courtesy resembled almost that of a gentleman of the old school. His musical taste had been highly cultivated, and it was always exceedingly pleasant to see him take his seat at the piano to accompany himself as he sang some humorous or grotesquely plaintive song -- words and music generally being alike of his own composition. His conversation was always interesting, and embraced all topics with equal seeming ease, however various. He had the still greater qualification of being a good listener also.
Rankine's name will always hold a high place in the history of science and will worthily be associated with those of the great men we have recently lost. And, when we think who these were, how strangely does such a list—including the names of Babbage, Boole, Brewster, Leslie Ellis, Faraday, Forbes, Herschel, Rowan Hamilton, Rankine, and others, though dedicated to physical or mathematical science alone—contrast with the recent astonishing utterance of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to the effect that the present is by no means an age abounding in the minds of the order! Nine such men lost by this little country within the last ten or twelve years—any one of whom would have made himself an enduring name had he lived in any preceding age, be it that of Hooke and Newton or that of Cavendish and Watt !
The death of Mr. William J. Macquorn Rankine, Professor of Engineering in the Glasgow University, announced on Tuesday morning, left a blank in many circles. For some time he had been suffering under an affection of the heart, but the immediate cause of his death was an attack of paralysis, under which he succumbed on Tuesday night, in the 52nd year of his age. Professor Rankine was the author of a number of erudite works connected with his particular branch of science, including a Manual of Applied Mechanics, a Manual of Steam Engine and other Prime Movers, Civil Engineering, Shipbuilding, Theoretical and Practical, a Manual of Machinery and Milling, &c., besides a variety of papers in the scientific journals, medicals and cyclopedias of the day. He held the degree of LL.D. from the Dublin University, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of many other learned bodies, besides being a consulting engineer to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. Yet with all his aptitude for dry mechanical study and speculation, and his great brilliance as a physicist, he had a rich, genial side to his character which rendered him the delight of the social circle. He took an active interest in the Volunteer movement and served for several years as a captain and major. Accomplished in poetry and music, he could both make his own poems and sing them, and his more devoted friends will remember at this time the two admirable lyrics, which appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine, illustrative of the old coaching and the modern railway days, -- Glasgow Citizen.
_________________________________________________
From a long notice of the late Professor Rankine of Glasgow, which appears in the Glasgow Herald of Saturday, we make the following extracts:
Glasgow University has lost in Rankine only an excellent man and an admirable Professor: she has lost a man of rare and original genius (to employ the word in its very highest sense) - one who was a maker or originator, and not a mere developer or commentator, like too many of our more popular celebrities. The number of Rankine's scientific papers seems absolutely enormous when we consider the minute and scrupulous care with which he attended to every point of detail in the writing and printing of them. In the Royal Society's splendid Catalogue of Scientific Papers, we find that from 1843 to 1864 (both inclusive) he published, in recognized scientific journals alone, upwards of 80 papers, many of these being exhaustive essays on mathematical or physical questions, and all, save one or two, containing genuine contributions to the advancement of science. Undoubtedly the greatest work of Rankine's is contained in his numerous papers bearing on the Dynamic Theory of Heat, and on Energy generally. As Sir William Thomson has remarked, even noted, even the mere title of test paper on this subject, Molecular Vortices, is an important contribution to physical science, The application of the doctrine, that heat and work are convertible, to the discovery of new relations among the properties of bodies was made about the same time by three scientific men—Thomson, Rankine, and Clausius. Rankine (late in 1819) and Clausius (early 1830) took the first step towards the formulation of a true theory of the action of heat on bodies by showing (by perfectly different methods of attacking the question) the nature of the modifications which Carnot's theory required. Thomson, in 1851, put the foundations of the theory in the form they have since retained. Rankine's researches on the general theory of elastic boilies are characterized by the fact that while, in laying the foundation of the theory, he confines himself to the use of rigorous methods and does not shrink from any mathematical difficulty in their application, he always prepares the way for the application of the results to practice by making the definitions so clear, the methods so simple, and the results so definite that they can be mastered by the exercise of a little thought, without special mathematical training. Rankine's works on Applied Mechanics, on the Steam Engine, and on Engineering contain many valuable and original methods, and while the publication of any one of them would have established the fame of one of our average scientific men, that on the steam engine simply could not have been produced by any but an original discoverer of a very high order.
Of the man himself it is not easy to speak in terms which, to a stranger, would appear unexaggerated. His appearance was striking and prepossessing in the extreme, and his courtesy resembled almost that of a gentleman of the old school. His musical taste had been highly cultivated, and it was always exceedingly pleasant to see him take his seat at the piano to accompany himself as he sang some humorous or grotesquely plaintive song -- words and music generally being alike of his own composition. His conversation was always interesting, and embraced all topics with equal seeming ease, however various. He had the still greater qualification of being a good listener also.
Rankine's name will always hold a high place in the history of science and will worthily be associated with those of the great men we have recently lost. And, when we think who these were, how strangely does such a list—including the names of Babbage, Boole, Brewster, Leslie Ellis, Faraday, Forbes, Herschel, Rowan Hamilton, Rankine, and others, though dedicated to physical or mathematical science alone—contrast with the recent astonishing utterance of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to the effect that the present is by no means an age abounding in the minds of the order! Nine such men lost by this little country within the last ten or twelve years—any one of whom would have made himself an enduring name had he lived in any preceding age, be it that of Hooke and Newton or that of Cavendish and Watt !
You can see the original newsprint at THIS LINK
