George N. Hatsopoulos

Who is George N. Hatsopoulos?

George Nicholas Hatsopoulos is a Greek American mechanical engineer noted for his work in thermodynamics. Professor Hatsopoulos was born in Athens, Greece and is linked to the family of the former rector of the Athens Polytechnic School, Nicolas Kitsikis. He attended Athens Polytechnic before entering MIT, where he was awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in 1950, and the professional degree of Mechanical Engineer in 1954, gaining his Doctorate of Science in 1956. In 1965, he and Joseph Keenan published their famous textbook Principles of General Thermodynamics, which restates the second law of thermodynamics in terms of the existence of stable equilibrium states. Their formulation of the second law of thermodynamics states that:

The Hatsopoulos-Keenan statement of the Second Law has been rigorously shown to entail the well-known Clausius, Kelvin-Planck, and Carathéodory statements of the Second Law. Moreover, it has provided a basis to extend the traditional definition of entropy to the non-equilibrium domain.