MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK. - ESTABLISHING THE SCIENCE OF RAREFIED GAS DYNAMICS.

On Stresses in Rarified Gases arising from Inequalities of Temperature. Recieved March 19, - Read April 11, 1878. (+) Appendix. (Added May, 1879).

(London, Harrison and Sons, 1880). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Philosophical Transactions", Year 1879, Vol. 171 - Part II. Pp. 231-256. Clean and fine.

First appearance of a major paper on Gas Dynamics, creating a whole new science. One of Maxwell's major investigations was on the kinetic theory of gases. Originating with Daniel Bernoulli, this theory was advanced by the successive labours of John Herapath, John James Waterston, James Joule, and particularly Rudolf Clausius, to such an extent as to put its general accuracy beyond a doubt; but it received enormous development from Maxwell, who in this field appeared as an experimenter (on the laws of gaseous friction) as well as a mathematician.

"Maxwell's last major paper on any subject was "On Stresses in Rarified Gases arising from Inequalities of Temperature." Between 1873 and 1876 the scientific world had been stirred by William Crooke's experiments with the radiometer, the well-known device composed of a partuially evacuated chamber containing a paddle wheel with vanes blackened on one side and silvered on the other, which spins rapidly when radiant heat impinges on it....Reynolds called this new effect "thermal transpiration". Maxwell gave a simple qualitative explanation in his report, and in an appendix added to his own paper in May 1879 he developed a semiempirical theory accounting for it and for the radiometer effect...Maxwell's paper created the science of rarified gas dynamics. His formulas for stress and heat flux in the body of the gas were contributions of permanent value, while his investigations of surface effects started a vast body of research extending to the present day...One other contribution of great beauty contained in notes added to the papwer in May and June 1879 was an application of the methods of spherical harmonic analysis to gas theory."(DSB IX, p. 224-25).

Order-nr.: 42765