ENGINEER

William John Macquorn Rankine

1820 - 1872

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William John Macquorn Rankine (; 5 July 1820 – 24 December 1872) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on its First Law. He developed the Rankine scale, a Fahrenheit-based equivalent to the Celsius-based Kelvin scale of temperature. Rankine developed a complete theory of the steam engine and indeed of all heat engines. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. William John Macquorn Rankine is the 8th most popular engineer (up from 44th in 2019), the 224th most popular biography from United Kingdom (up from 739th in 2019) and the most popular British Engineer.

William John Macquorn Rankine was a Scottish engineer who is most famous for his work in thermodynamics. He is credited with the invention of the Rankine scale.

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Among ENGINEERS

Among engineers, William John Macquorn Rankine ranks 8 out of 389Before him are Gottlieb Daimler, Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, Mikhail Kalashnikov, Zhuge Liang, Wernher von Braun, and Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot. After him are Frederick Winslow Taylor, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Alexei Kosygin, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, José Echegaray, and Sergei Korolev.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1820, William John Macquorn Rankine ranks 6Before him are Friedrich Engels, Florence Nightingale, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Herbert Spencer, and Nadar. After him are Anne Brontë, Harriet Tubman, Henri, Count of Chambord, Edmond Becquerel, Henri Vieuxtemps, and Multatuli. Among people deceased in 1872, William John Macquorn Rankine ranks 6Before him are Samuel Morse, Ludwig Feuerbach, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, Charles XV of Sweden, and Giuseppe Mazzini. After him are Théophile Gautier, Benito Juárez, Stanisław Moniuszko, N. F. S. Grundtvig, Franz Grillparzer, and George Robert Gray.

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, William John Macquorn Rankine ranks 224 out of 8,785Before him are Catherine Howard (1523), Guy Fawkes (1570), Æthelbald, King of Wessex (831), George Stephenson (1781), John Harvard (1607), and W. H. Auden (1907). After him are Humphry Davy (1778), T. E. Lawrence (1888), Marie of Romania (1875), Joseph Priestley (1733), Ringo Starr (1940), and C. S. Lewis (1898).

Among ENGINEERS In United Kingdom

Among engineers born in United Kingdom, William John Macquorn Rankine ranks 1After him are Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806), Hertha Ayrton (1854), Godfrey Hounsfield (1919), William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong (1810), John Ambrose Fleming (1849), Colin Chapman (1928), Charles George Gordon (1833), Adrian Newey (1958), Henry Royce (1863), Charles Rolls (1877), and Patrick Head (1946).