Herbert Callen

Herbert B. Callen ( born July 1, 1919 in Philadelphia, † May 22 1993 in Merion, Pennsylvania) was an American theoretical physicist. He is known in the U.S. for his 1960 published textbook on thermodynamics.

Life

Herbert Callen graduated from Temple University and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During World War II he worked in the Manhattan Project. From 1948 he was at the University of Pennsylvania, where he became professor in 1956. In 1951 he proved with Theodore Welton, the fluctuation-dissipation theorem in 1985 Callen became Professor Emeritus.

1984 Herbert Callen won the Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. In 1990 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Callen was married and had a son and a daughter.

Writings

• Thermodynamics and an introduction to thermal Statistics. 2nd edition, Wiley, 1985, ISBN 0-471-86256-8 ( first in 1960 as Thermodynamics - an introduction to the physical theory of equilibrium thermodynamic statics and irreversible thermodynamics )