Elias Gyftopoulos, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Elias Gyftopoulos

Greek-American thermodynamicist

Date of Birth: 04-Jul-1927

Place of Birth: Athens, Attica Region, Greece

Date of Death: 23-Jun-2012

Profession: thermodynamicist

Nationality: United States, Greece

Zodiac Sign: Cancer

Elias Panayiotis Gyftopoulos (Greek: ???a? ?a?a???t?? G?ft?p?????; July 4, 1927 – June 23, 2012) was a Greek-American engineer who contributed to thermodynamics both in its general formulation and its quantum foundations.Gyftopoulos received an undergraduate degree in mechanical and electrical engineering in 1953 from the National Technical University of Athens, and a Doctor of Science degree in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958.
At MIT, he initially focused on nuclear reactor safety and control.
After meeting professors George N.
Hatsopoulos and 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 with 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.