Origin of Thermal Analysis

International acceptance of a definition of “thermal analysis” should enable the originator of studies in this field to be located. A search of the literature suggests that the first to use a technique that could be so classified was Jakob Fredrik Emanuel Rudberg (1800–1839) in Sweden, who observed inverse cooling‐rate phenomena in 1829. He was followed by Moritz Ludwig Frankenheim (1801–1869) in Germany, who determined cooling curves in 1837, by James Ballantyne Hannay (1855–1931) in Scotland, who introduced mass‐change curves in 1877, and by Henry Louis Le Chatelier (1850–1936) in France, who devised quasi‐isothermal heating curves and heating‐rate curves in 1883 and 1887. As all of these studies were probably initially independent of the earlier work, perhaps the honour should be shared.