Josef Stefan

Josef Stefan

Born: 24 March 1835 in St Peter (near Klagenfurt), Austria
Died: 7 Jan 1893 in Vienna, Austria

Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page
Josef Stefan was appointed lecturer in mathematical physics at Vienna in 1858 and became a professor there in 1866. In 1866 he bacame director of the Physical Institute at Vienna.

He showed empirically, in 1879, that total radiation from a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. Boltzmann, one of his students, showed in 1884 that this Stefan-Boltzmann law could be demonstrated mathematically. Stefan then applied it to determine the approximate temperature of the surface of the Sun. He also did important work on heat conduction in fluids and the kinetic theory of heat.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Stefan's work in Quantum Mechanics

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. A von Obermayer, Zur Erinnerung an Josef Stefan (Vienna-Leipzig, 1893). 
Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page

History Topics Index              Famous curves index

Chronologies                           Birthplace Map

Mathematicians of the day  Anniversaries for the year

Search Form   Simple Search Form   Search Suggestions
JOC/EFR February 1996