Müller, Ingo 1936-

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Müller, Ingo 1936-

PERSONAL:

Born December 23, 1936, in Darmstadt, Germany; son of Hermann and Elfriede Müller; married Ingrid M. Willing, August 24, 1964; children: Ina, Olav, Nora. Education: Technische Hochschule Aachen, diploma, 1962, Ph.D., 1966, lecturer qualification, 1970.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Berlin, Strasse des 17 Juni 135, 1000, Berlin, Germany. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, Began as assistant professor, became associate professor, 1970-75; University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany, professor of theoretical physics, 1975-76; University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany, professor of theoretical physics, 1976-79; Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, professor of thermodynamics, 1979-85, professor emeritus, 1985—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Leibniz Award, 1988; honorary doctorate, Technical University Darmstadt, 1994; theoretical mechanics prize, Academy of Sciences of Turin, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Entropy, Absolute Temperature, and Coldness in Thermodynamics: Boundary Conditions in Porous Materials, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1971.

Thermodynamik: Die Grundlagen der Materialtheorie, Bertelsmann-Universitätsverlag (Düsseldorf, Germany), 1973.

Thermodynamics, Pitman (Boston, MA), 1985.

(With Joachim Fehr) Moderne Kachelöfen: Bewährte Technik in neuer Form: Nutzungsvarianten, Energiesparkonzepte, Callwey (Munich, Germany), 1987.

(With Tommaso Ruggeri) Extended Thermodynamics, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1993, 2nd edition published as Rational Extended Thermodynamics, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1998.

(With P. Strehlow) Rubber and Rubber Balloons: Paradigms of Thermodynamics, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Wolf Weiss) Entropy and Energy: A Universal Competition, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 2005.

A History of Thermodynamics: The Doctrine of Energy and Entropy, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 2007.

Also contributor to scientific journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Physicist Ingo Müller specializes in the study of the processes of thermodynamics—the understanding of heat, work, and the relationship between the two. His books include Extended Thermodynamics, Rational Extended Thermodynamics, Entropy and Energy: A Universal Competition, and A History of Thermodynamics: The Doctrine of Energy and Entropy. Müller is especially noted for his role in creating the subfield of extended thermodynamics, which examines the ways in which some systems apparently fail to follow the laws of thermodynamics. The theory of extended thermodynamics postulates that some systems do not find the equilibrium required by the second law of thermodynamics. Instead, they cycle between two states, remaining in constant flux. This theory allows some of the principles of thermodynamics to be applied to the expanding field of nonequilibrium physics.

Müller began his career teaching at Johns Hopkins University in the 1970s before returning to his native Germany to teach at the University of Düsseldorf and the University of Paderborn; he eventually moved to the Technical University of Berlin, from which he retired in 2005. During the time he was in Berlin, stated a writer for the Web site Complex Systems, "he studied and taught all aspects of thermodynamics," ranging from the ways that the movement of heat changes metals and alloys to relativistic thermodynamics, rubber elasticity, rubber balloons, the thermodynamics of biological and sociological systems, and the ways in which rarified gasses behave according to thermodynamic principles.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

SciTech Book News, November, 1993, review of Extended Thermodynamics, p. 13.

ONLINE

Complex Systems,http://complexsystems.net.au/ (February 6, 2008), brief biography of Ingo Müller.

North Carolina State University,http://www.mae.ncsu.edu/ (February 6, 2008), brief biography of Ingo Müller.

Technische Universität Berlin,http://www.thermodynamik.tu-berlin.de/ (February 6, 2008), brief biography of Ingo Müller.

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