Professor Johannes Orphal of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has studied the life and work of Rudolf Clausius for over 30 years now. Professor Meschede, co-creator of and speaker in the 200th anniversary lecture series (together with Professor Vöhringer and Professor Monien), has characterized Professor Orphal as one of the greatest Clausius specialists he is aware of. Noting how he was greatly pleased to be speaking on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Clausius, Dr. Orphal had observed that “Bonn is the proper place for Clausius to be memorialized,” and that individuals of such greatness are worthy of emulation both within and outside the sciences.
Dr. Orphal’s detailed research into Clausius, as part of which over several years he has compiled a trove of documents and letters, yields an impression of a man who became impassioned with science at an early age. In a letter from 1847 Clausius lamented how much the substitute teaching work he had to take on to support his family detracted from his aims: “... for in truth my main goal had ever been to be an effective university teacher.” Clausius remained thus dedicated on into old age, continuing to lecture uninterrupted at the university following the death of his wife.
The testimony of Helmholtz and Planck among other highly prominent colleagues and successors establish plainly the recognition Clausius enjoyed in the scientific community —see Helmholtz’ remarks from 1889 on the “acuity of his mathematical thought” and Planck’s comments from 1887 on Clausius’ “epochal paper” of 1850. In Albert Einstein’s Autobiographical Notes of 1949, he related how classical thermodynamics had left a deep impression on him, believing it to be the only theory of physics of a general nature which would “never be overturned” with regard to the applicability of its basic concepts.
The numerous awards Rudolf Clausius received, including the Huygens Medal of Akademie Leiden, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, the Prussian order Pour le Mérite and the French Légion d’Honneur underscore the significance of his research for both theoretical science and industrial applications. Concluding his lecture Dr. Orphal said that what is most important to him personally is that “he should never again fall into dismemory, as was the case in the previous 100 years.”
Dr. Orphal presented the University of Bonn its first gift of the evening in the form of two large boxes from the Carl Zeiss Archive in Jena containing original documents of Clausius, including offprints and manuscripts of Clausius’ very first written works, saying “the University of Bonn is the right place for these."
The second ‘birthday present’ enjoyed that evening came after an extended break for pandemic hygiene reasons, when the Physics Show of Professor Herbert Dreiner and Michael Kortmann returned to the stage—a theater play that turns Rudolf Clausius’ research into a fun learning experience. In this fictive account, Rudolf and his apartment mate Henriette are looking for a third person to join them as co-tenant. Interested parties have to show them an experiment they both find intriguing as a type of contest—the best one wins the room. Several enlightening experiments are shown in this entertaining stage show that portrays one way how Rudolf Clausius might have come up with the concept of entropy and arrived at his thermodynamic insights, cleverly communicating their significance to the public.
University of Bonn Rector Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Hoch made particular note of how he and his colleagues at the Rectorate find Rudolf Clausius such an inspiring figure: “We are proud to commemorate this outstanding scientist associated with our university here at today’s celebration.” “I would like to thank the entire team of organizers for their work to make us more aware of Clausius—who have prepared a second event in this special Clausius memorial year coming up in July.”
The video of this event will soon be posted on unibonn.tv for anyone to watch. The event was held jointly by the Departments of Chemistry and Physics/Astronomy together with the University of Bonn Transdisciplinary Research Area "Building Blocks of Matter and Fundamental Interactions", in cooperation with Bad Honnef Center of Physics (PBH) and the German Physics Society. A grand finale event will be held July 13th as part of the University of Bonn’s ‘Clausius Year’ commemorative celebrations. For the complete information visit www.uni-bonn.de/clausius
