The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Rankine, William John Macquorn
(rng´kn) (KEY) , 182072, Scottish engineer and physicist. Serving as a professor of engineering at the Univ. of Glasgow from 1855, he made valuable contributions to civil and mechanical engineering as well as to thermodynamics. His manuals of applied mechanics and of civil engineering and one on the steam engine and other such engines went into many editions.