Background
Keenan, Joseph Henry was born on August 24, 1900 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Joseph Henry and Wilhelmina (Maurer) Keenan.
Keenan, Joseph Henry was born on August 24, 1900 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Joseph Henry and Wilhelmina (Maurer) Keenan.
Bachelor of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1922. Doctor of Laws, University Glasgow, 1966.
His classic 1941 textbook Thermodynamics served as a fundamental teaching tool in various engineering curricula during the 1940s and 1950s. He earned a bachelor"s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1922. After working as a design engineer on steam turbines for General Electric Company, Keenan became an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1928.
In 1934, he became an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He was promoted to professor in 1939. He served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1958 to 1961.
A major portion of Keenan’s career was devoted to the development of accurate tables of the properties of steam, which are vital to the electric power industry. In 1929, he was appointed the United States. delegate to the First International Conference on the Properties of Steam.
He served as delegate in all successive conferences on this subject through the eighth in 1974.
In 1965, he published the classic textbook Principles of General Thermodynamics with George Hatsopoulos which was major turning point in thermodynamics since Gilbert North. Lewis and Merle Randall with their 1923 Thermodynamics textbook. Their now famous version of the second law of thermodynamics is: This shows that the second law of thermodynamics can be stated in terms of the existence of stable equilibrium states. He was a fellow of the American Academy of and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1976.
In 2007, an International Thermodynamics Symposium called “meeting the entropy challenge” was organized in Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Honor and Memory of Professor Joseph Henry Keenan.
Served to lieutenant commander United States Naval Reserve Force, 1940-1953. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (honorary. Member Institute Aeronautical.
Sciences, American Association Physics Teachers (honorary), American Society Engineering Education, American Association of University Professors, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi.
Clubs: Siasconset (Massachusetts) Casino.
Married Isabel Morrison, January 30, 1924. Children: Esther Marie (Mistress John West. Carr III), Matthew Arnold.