# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/william-john-macquorn-rankine
# Generated: 2026-09-02T06:19:31.221Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/william-john-macquorn-rankine"
name: "William John Macquorn Rankine"
slug: "william-john-macquorn-rankine"
description: "He gave the steam engine its theoretical foundation — and then built the manuals that kept industrial civilization running for half a century."
tagline: "Civil engineer (1820–1872)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/William_Rankine_1870s.jpg"
gender: "male"
country:
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  isoCode: "GB"
category:
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  slug: "scientists"
profileType:
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  slug: "scientist"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1820-07-05"
deathDate: "1872-12-24"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
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  momentum:             0
  historical:           23.876608
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  profileCompleteness:  70
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
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  country:  null
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born 5 July 1820 in Scotland, Rankine trained as both mathematician and physicist before turning to the young science of thermodynamics in the 1850s. Alongside Clausius and Kelvin, he helped establish its First Law and developed the Rankine temperature scale, a Fahrenheit analogue to Kelvin's. His complete theory of heat engines — steam and otherwise — appeared in engineering manuals published through the 1850s and 1860s that remained standard texts for decades. From 1840 onward he published several hundred papers across botany, music theory, number theory, and nearly every major branch of science and engineering. He played cello, piano, sang, and shot rifles. He died 24 December 1872.