Name Elias Gyftopoulos | ||
 | ||
Born 4 July 1927
Athens, Greece ( 1927-07-04 ) Institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology Died June 23, 2012, Lincoln, Massachusetts, United States Institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alma mater National Technical University of Athens, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Fields Thermodynamics, Energetics, Physics | ||
Citizenship Greece
USA (from 1963) | ||
Elias Panayiotis Gyftopoulos (Greek: Ηλίας Παναγιώτης Γυφτόπουλος; July 4, 1927 – June 23, 2012) was a Greek-American engineer who gave contributions to Thermodynamics both in its general formulation and its quantum foundations.
Gyftopoulos graduated in Mechanical and Electrical engineering in 1953 at the National Technical University of Athens, and became Doctor of Science in Electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958. In the latter university, he started as teacher on Nuclear reactor safety and control. After knowing professor George N. Hatsopoulos, his work and the one of professor Joseph H. Keenan, his interests moved towards Thermodynamics, in an attempt to give a consistent and rigorous exposition, free of the logical flaws and the limitations commonly associated to this discipline: the result was a non-statistical theory, applicable to both macroscopic and microscopic systems, both in equilibrium and in non-equilibrium. His research culminated in the effort to give a quantum basis to Thermodynamics with a physical theory unifying Mechanics and Thermodynamics.