13 Facts About Josef Stefan

Josef Stefan was a Carinthian Slovene physicist, mathematician, and poet of the Austrian Empire.

Josef Stefan attended elementary school in Klagenfurt, where he showed talent, and was recommended for enrollment at the Klagenfurt Lyceum in 1845.

Josef Stefan left for Vienna in 1853 to study mathematics and physics.

Josef Stefan then earned his habilitation in mathematical physics at the University of Vienna in 1858.

Josef Stefan taught physics at the University of Vienna, was Director of the Physical Institute from 1866, Vice-President of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, and member of several scientific institutions in Europe.

Josef Stefan published nearly 80 scientific articles, mostly in the Bulletins of the Vienna Academy of Sciences.

Josef Stefan is best known for originating Stefan's law in 1879, a physical power law stating that the total radiation from a black body is proportional to the fourth power of its thermodynamic temperature T:.

Josef Stefan derived this law from the measurements of the French physicists Dulong and Petit.

Josef Stefan provided the first measurements of the thermal conductivity of gases, treated evaporation, and among others studied diffusion, heat conduction in fluids.

Josef Stefan was among the first physicists in Europe who fully understood Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and one of the few outside England who expanded on it.

Josef Stefan calculated inductivity of a coil with a quadratic cross-section, and he corrected Maxwell's miscalculation.

Josef Stefan researched a phenomenon called the skin effect, where high-frequency electric current is greater on the surface of a conductor than in its interior.

Josef Stefan solved the problem when he was calculating how quickly a layer of ice on water grows.