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Loschmidt, Stefan, and Stigler’s Law of Eponymy

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Josef Loschmidt (1821–1895) and Josef Stefan (1835–1893) were eminent scientists in the Institute of Physics at the University of Vienna during the second half of the nineteenth century but are not well known today, as their legacies have been recognized differently by the scientific community. Loschmidt first described the structure of the benzene molecule and determined the size of air molecules, from which the number of molecules per unit volume can easily be determined, yet others received the credit for these achievements. Stefan posited the fourth-power temperature radiation law, but neither he nor his student Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) calculated the proportionality constant now known as the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. These are instances of Stigler’s Law of Eponymy. Besides these achievements, perhaps the greatest unheralded contribution of both Loschmidt and Stefan was the experimental evidence they provided in support of the emerging kinetic theory of gases.

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Correspondence to John Crepeau.

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John Crepeau, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Idaho in Idaho Falls.

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Crepeau, J. Loschmidt, Stefan, and Stigler’s Law of Eponymy. Phys. Perspect. 11, 357 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-009-0420-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-009-0420-z

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