engineering

Riki Kobayashi

Riki Kobayashi is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Riki Kobayashi rather than just read about it. In short: Riki Kobayashi (1924–2013) was a chemical engineer and a long-time professor of chemical engineering at Rice University. A native of Harris County, Texas, he attended Rice University (then known as Rice Institute) and earned the Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering at the age of 19.

Key takeaways

Riki Kobayashi belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Riki Kobayashi to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Riki Kobayashi from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Riki Kobayashi (1924–2013) was a chemical engineer and a long-time professor of chemical engineering at Rice University. A native of Harris County, Texas, he attended Rice University (then known as Rice Institute) and earned the Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering at the age of 19. After serving in the U.S. Army, he went to the University of Michigan, where he earned the Master of Science degree in 1946 and the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1951, both in chemical engineering. He became a member of the Rice faculty in 1951 and remained there until he retired in 1994. He died July 19, 2013, in Houston, Texas.

Professional career Kobayashi was a diligent researcher who was widely known for his investigations of thermodynamic and transport properties, particularly of natural gas liquids and hydrates. He has been credited with writing at least 200 articles for professional journals. In 1949, he was a co-author of the Handbook of Natural Gas Engineering, which is still used by engineers in the industry. Later, while teaching at Rice University, he became well known for his pioneering work in phase equilibrium, physical properties and transport properties which were highly important to the development of the natural gas processing industries. He belonged to several professional associations, including:

American Chemical Society (ACS) American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) American Institute of Chemists American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas Japan Institute of Chemical Engineering National Academy of Engineering (NAE) He also belonged to Sigma Chi, Alpha Chi Sigma, Tau Beta Pi, Phi Lambda Upsilon, and Phi Kappa Phi. Personally warm and approachable, Dr. Kobayashi was addressed simply as Riki by nearly all of his graduate students throughout his career. Graduate students who had come directly from Japan were the exception; they used the Japanese honorific "sensei" (teacher), a sign of great respect.

Honors and awards The AIChE honored Kobayashi by presenting a symposium in his honor in 1987, where the society called him, "...one of the century's most prolific researchers in thermodynamic and transport properties." He received many other professional honors during his lifetime. Among these were:

Appointed to Louis Calder Chair in Chemical Engineering at Rice in 1965. Outstanding Engineering Award by Rice University in 1985. First annual Donald Katz Award by the Gas Processors Association in 1985. Election to National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 1995. Albert Einstein Medal awarded by the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in 2010. The Riki Kobayashi Fellowship in Chemical Engineering was created in his honor. The first award was made in 2005.

Personal life Kobayashi was born in Webster, Texas on May 13, 1924. His parents were Mitsutaro and Moto Shigeta Kobayashi. Both parents were born in Japan. Mitsutaro Kobayashi's occupation was listed as a farmer. He was survived by his wife, two sons, two stepdaughters, a brother and three sisters.

Notes

References

External links www.example.com

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Riki Kobayashi

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Riki Kobayashi claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Riki Kobayashi before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Riki Kobayashi ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Riki Kobayashi

In research: Riki Kobayashi appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Riki Kobayashi in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Riki Kobayashi is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1924 births, 2013 deaths, American academics of Japanese descent, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Riki Kobayashi outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Riki Kobayashi in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Riki Kobayashi means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Riki Kobayashi out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Riki Kobayashi in simple terms?

Why does Riki Kobayashi matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Riki Kobayashi?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Riki Kobayashi.