Frederick Thomas Trouton

Frederick Thomas Trouton FRS (24 November, 1863 – 21 September, 1922) was an Irish physicist known for Trouton's Rule and experiments to detect the Earth's motion through the luminiferous aether.

Trouton was born in Dublin in 1863 and attended Trinity College there, working with George FitzGerald and earning an M.A. and D.Sc. It was while still a student that he proposed the statement now called Trouton's Rule. This rule states that $Delta$S_vap = $Delta$H_vap / T_b = 87 - 88 J K^-1 mol^-1 for various liquids. In other words, the change of entropy per mole for vaporization at the boiling point is constant.

A 1902 appointment as Quain Professor of Physics at University College London led to a 12-year career of experimental physics, including work on the Trouton-Rankine experiment. Illness forced Trouton's retirement in 1914, although he did clerical work temporarily in the Foreign Office during World War I. He received an OBE in 1918.

Trouton married in 1887. He and his wife were the parents of three daughters and four sons. Trouton died in 1922 at Downe, in Kent.

ee also

* Trouton's Rule
* Trouton-Rankine Experiment
* Trouton-Noble Experiment

Further reading

*
*- See especially pages 85 – 86.
*

External links

* [http://www.phys.ucl.ac.uk/department/history/BFox1.html#Fox140 Trouton: 1902-1914]