John H. Lienhard
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John Henry Lienhard IV (born 1930) is Professor Emeritus of mechanical engineering and history at
The University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in so ...
. He worked in heat transfer and thermodynamics for many years prior to creating the radio program ''
The Engines of Our Ingenuity ''The Engines of Our Ingenuity'' is a daily radio series produced jointly by KUHF-FM, Houston, Texas, and the University of Houston. The series tells the story of human invention and creativity in 3 minute essays. The stories center on engineeri ...
''. Lienhard is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.


Childhood and education

Lienhard was born in
St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...
in 1930. Lienhard's father, John H. Lienhard III, served in Europe during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
as a pilot for the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
then became a journalist for the St. Paul Dispatch and later a surveyor in Oregon. His mother, Catherine Lienhard (née Henderson), was an accomplished pianist and singer. One of his great-grandfathers was the Swiss pioneer
Heinrich Lienhard Johann Heinrich Lienhard (January 19, 1822, Bilten, Canton Glarus – December 19, 1903, Nauvoo, Illinois) was a Swiss immigrant to the United States. He left Switzerland at the age of 21. His memoirsLienhard, Heinrich, 1822-1903. ''Memoirs ...
, and another was the abolitionist, newspaper editor, and Minnesota state legislator Charles Augustus Wheaton. His family moved to
Roseburg, Oregon Roseburg is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is in the Umpqua River, Umpqua River Valley in southern Oregon and is the county seat and most populous city of Douglas County, Oregon, Douglas County. Founded in 1851, the population was 23,683 a ...
when Lienhard was in his teens. Lienhard had
dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...
as a child. He overcame this disability, finishing high school in 1947 and graduating from Multnomah College with an associate degree in 1949. He then received a BS degree from the
Oregon State College Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...
(1951), after which he worked for the Boeing Airplane Co. in Seattle, Washington. He continued his studies in mechanical engineering, earning his MS degree from the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
(1953) before being drafted into the US Army. While in the Army, he served at the Signal Corps Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He received his PhD at the University of California in 1961. Lienhard has been married to his wife Carol Ann Bratton since 1959. They have two sons,
John H. Lienhard V John Henry Lienhard V (born 1961) is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water and Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on desalination, heat transfer, and thermodynamics. He has also written ...
and Andrew J. Lienhard.


Career

Upon his discharge from the Army, Lienhard returned to the University of Washington to teach mechanical engineering. He moved to the University of California at Berkeley in 1956 to serve as an engineering instructor, and to complete his PhD. After Berkeley, Lienhard was an associate professor at
Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant unive ...
from 1961–1967. He then moved to the
University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...
, where he was a professor from 1967–1980. In 1980, he moved to the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
, where he is the M.D. Anderson Professor of Technology and Culture, emeritus. Lienhard's engineering research centered on heat transfer with phase change. His work encompassed film boiling, liquid jets, condensation (with his student Vijay K. Dhir), critical heat flux in various pool-boiling configurations, spinodal limits to liquid superheats, rapid depressurization, and rainfall run-off, among other topics. His work on critical heat flux included centrifuge measurements of boiling at high gravity, some conducted for NASA. Lienhard coauthored a textbook on statistical thermodynamics with Professor Chang-lin Tien (1971). He later wrote a textbook on heat transfer (1981) which went through a number of editions (1987, 2001, 2011, 2019), the last three coauthored with his eldest son, John H. Lienhard V. The heat transfer textbook has been available as a free ebook since 2001, one of the earliest textbooks to be distributed in this format. Lienhard created the radio program ''
The Engines of Our Ingenuity ''The Engines of Our Ingenuity'' is a daily radio series produced jointly by KUHF-FM, Houston, Texas, and the University of Houston. The series tells the story of human invention and creativity in 3 minute essays. The stories center on engineeri ...
'' in January 1988. He has written and voiced thousands of episodes in the decades since. Lienhard's work on ''Engines'' has led to several books, in addition to the radio episodes. The radio program is produced by KUHF in Houston and carried by National Public Radio. The daily broadcasts of ''Engines of Our Ingenuity'' made Lienhard a sought-after public speaker. Over the three decades after ''Engines'' launched, Lienhard gave dozens of invited lectures each year, eventually totaling more than 1100 major addresses. He donated the honoraria from these talks to the University of Houston to create the ''Engines of Our Ingenuity'' undergraduate scholarship endowment.


Awards and recognition

Lienhard was elected as Fellow of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...
(ASME) in 1977 and as Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
in 1989. He was recognized with the Charles Russ Richards Medal of Pi Tau Sigma and ASME in 1979, the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 1980, the ASME Ralph Coates Roe Medal in 1989 (for contributions to a public understanding of technology), the ASME Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award in 1992, the
ASEE The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education. The purpose of ASEE is the advancement of education ...
Ralph Coates Roe Award in 1994, the ASME Engineer-Historian Award in 1998, and the ASME Edwin F. Church Medal in 2000. ASME made Lienhard an Honorary Member in 1995. Lienhard received a Doctorate in Humane Letters, ''honoris causa'', from the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
in 2002. Sacred Heart University awarded him an honorary doctorate in the same year. Lienhard was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2003 "for creating the awareness of engineering in the development of cultures and civilizations, and for the development of basic burnout theories in boiling and condensation".


List of books

* Chang-lin Tien and John H. Lienhard, ''Statistical Thermodynamics'', Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York, 1971. (revised edition, Hemisphere-McGraw-Hill, Wash D.C., 1979) * John H. Lienhard, ''A Heat Transfer Textbook'', Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1981. * John H. Lienhard, ''A Heat Transfer Textbook'', 2nd ed. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1987. * ''History of Heat Transfer: Essays in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the ASME Heat Transfer Division'', (E. T. Layton and J. H. Lienhard, eds.), ASME, New York, 1988. * John H. Lienhard, ''The engines of our ingenuity: an engineer looks at technology and culture'', Oxford University Press, New York, 2000. * John H. Lienhard, ''Inventing modern: an engineer looks for the twentieth century'', Oxford University Press, New York, 2003. * John H. Lienhard, ''How invention begins: echoes of old voices in the rise of new machines'', Oxford University Press, New York, 2008. * John H. Lienhard, IV and John H. Lienhard, V ''A heat transfer textbook, 4th edition'', Dover Publications, Mineola NY, 2011. * John H. Lienhard, IV and John H. Lienhard, V ''A heat transfer textbook, 5th edition'', Dover Publications, Mineola NY, 2019.


References


External links


The Engines of Our Ingenuity
website.
John H. Lienhard: Engineer, Educator, Communicator''A Heat Transfer Textbook, 5/e''
free ebook. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lienhard, John H. 1930 births Living people People from Saint Paul, Minnesota American mechanical engineers American radio hosts University of Houston System people Fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Oregon State University alumni University of Washington alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni