In thermodynamics, Laszlo Tisza (1907-2009) was a Hungarian-born American physicist noted for his 1963 definition of the subject of quantum thermodynamics in structural form, and for his 1966 textbook Generalized Thermodynamics, in which he was the first to use the term Gibbsian thermodynamics, with clarification, to a significant degree. [1]
Education
Tisza studied mathematics and physics in 1928 at the University of Gottingen, studying under those such as Max Born, where he began his life-long search to find a better connection between physics and mathematics. After completing his PhD thesis on molecular spectra, submitted in Budapest, Tisza joined Russian physicist Lev Landau’s group in Kharkov, where he was much influenced by Landau’s integration of thermodynamics into modern physics. In 1941, Tisza immigrated to the United States joining the MIT physics department, in connection with the MIT school of thermodynamics, where he set up a rigorous but intuitive course in thermodynamics and statistical physics.
References
1. (a) Laszlo Tisza – MIT Physics Faculty.
(b) Tisza, Laszlo. (1963). “The Conceptual Structure of Physics”, (section IV: Mechanics, Thermodynamics, and Quantum Mechanics”, Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 35, No. 1, Jan.
(c) Tisza, Laszlo. (1966). Generalized Thermodynamics, (appendix: The Conceptual Structure of Physics, pgs. 343-78). MIT Press.
Further reading
● Tisza, Laszlo. (1961). “The Thermodynamics of Phase Equilibrium”, Annals of Physics, 13, 1-92.
● Tisza, Laszlo and Quay, P.M. (1963). “Statistical Thermodynamics of Equilibrium”, Annals of Physics, 25, 49-90.
● Laszlo, Tisza. (1988). “Oral History Interview with Laszlo Tisza” (Interview conducted by Kostas Gavroglu, 15 November 1987 to 27 April 1988). American Institute of Physics.
● Tisza, Laszlo, Shimony, Abner, and Feschbach, Herman. (1982). Physics as Natural Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Laszlo Tisza on his Seventy-fifth Birthday. MIT Press.
External links
● Laszlo Tisza – Wikipedia.
