Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot was a French mechanical engineer in the French Army, military scientist and physicist, often described as the "father of thermodynamics". He published only one book, the Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, in which he expressed the first successful theory of the maximum efficiency of heat engines and laid the foundations of the new discipline: thermodynamics. Carnot's work attracted little attention during his lifetime, but it was later used by Rudolf Clausius and Lord Kelvin to formalize the second law of thermodynamics and define the concept of entropy. Driven by purely technical concerns, such as improving the performance of the steam engine, Sadi Carnot's theoretical work laid important foundations for modern science as well as technologies such as the automobile and jet engine.

1 June 1796

Born on the same birth day (1 June): Antonietta Di Martino • Charlene (singer) • Dinesh Karthik • Edmund Ignatius Rice • Geminiano Montanari • Giorgos Lillikas • Greg Schiano • Gyula Kállai • Haruo Remeliik • Lorraine Moller • Mario Cimarro • Michael McDowell (author) • Nambaryn Enkhbayar • Nick Young (basketball) • Orietta Berti • Otto of Greece • Pat Boone • Peter Machajdík • Richard Goode • Ronnie Dunn • Walter Horak • Werner Günthör • Zazie Beetz

Born in the same month (June 1796): François-Louis Cailler • Jan Paweł Lelewel • Luigi Amat di San Filippo e Sorso • Nikolai Brashman