Lord Kelvin

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin,

Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in his honour. While the existence of a coldest possible temperature, absolute zero, was known before his work, Kelvin determined its correct value as approximately −273.15 degrees Celsius or −459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. The Joule–Thomson effect is also named in his honour.

He worked closely with mathematics professor Hugh Blackburn in his work. He also had a career as an electrical telegraph engineer and inventor which propelled him into the public eye and earned him wealth, fame, and honours. For his work on the transatlantic telegraph project, he was knighted in 1866 by Queen Victoria, becoming Sir William Thomson. He had extensive maritime interests and worked on the mariner's compass, which previously had limited reliability.

He was

He resided in Netherhall, a redstone mansion in Largs, which he built in the 1870s and where he died in 1907. The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow has a permanent exhibition on the work of Kelvin, which includes many of his original papers, instruments, and other artefacts, including his smoking pipe.

Early life and work

Family

Thomson's father, James Thomson, was a teacher of mathematics and engineering at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and the son of a farmer. James Thomson married Margaret Gardner in 1817 and, of their children, four boys and two girls survived infancy. Margaret Thomson died in 1830 when William was six years old.^[13]

William and his elder brother James were tutored at home by their father while the younger boys were tutored by their elder sisters. James was intended to benefit from the major share of his father's encouragement, affection and financial support and was prepared for a career in engineering.

In 1832, his father was appointed professor of mathematics at Glasgow, and the family moved there in October 1833. The Thomson children were introduced to a broader cosmopolitan experience than their father's rural upbringing, spending mid-1839 in London, and the boys were tutored in French in Paris. Much of Thomson's life during the mid-1840s was spent in Germany and the Netherlands. Language study was given a high priority.

His sister, Anna Thomson, was the mother of physicist

Youth

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Thomson had heart problems and nearly died when he was 9 years old. He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, where his father was a professor in the university department. In 1834, aged 10, he began studying at the University of Glasgow, not out of any precociousness; the university provided many of the facilities of an elementary school for able pupils, and this was a typical starting age. In school, Thomson showed a keen interest in the classics along with his natural interest in the sciences. At age 12 he won a prize for translating Lucian of Samosata's Dialogues of the Gods from Ancient Greek to English.

In the academic year 1839/1840, Thomson won the class prize in astronomy for his "Essay on the figure of the Earth" which showed an early facility for mathematical analysis and creativity. His physics tutor at this time was his namesake, David Thomson.^[15] Throughout his life, he would work on the problems raised in the essay as a coping strategy during times of personal stress. On the title page of this essay Thomson wrote the following lines from Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man." These lines inspired Thomson to understand the natural world using the power and method of science:

Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides;
Go measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,

Correct old Time, and regulate the sun;

Thomson became intrigued with Joseph Fourier's Théorie analytique de la chaleur (The Analytical Theory of Heat) and committed himself to study the "continental" mathematics resisted by a British establishment still working in the shadow of Sir Isaac Newton. Unsurprisingly, Fourier's work had been attacked by domestic mathematicians, Philip Kelland authoring a critical book. The book motivated Thomson to write his first published scientific paper^[16] under the pseudonym P.Q.R., defending Fourier, which was submitted to The Cambridge Mathematical Journal by his father. A second P.Q.R. paper followed almost immediately.^[17]

While on holiday with his family in Lamlash in 1841, he wrote a third, more substantial P.Q.R. paper On the uniform motion of heat in homogeneous solid bodies, and its connection with the mathematical theory of electricity.^[18] In the paper he made remarkable connections between the mathematical theories of thermal conduction and electrostatics, an analogy that James Clerk Maxwell was ultimately to describe as one of the most valuable science-forming ideas.^[19]

Cambridge

William's father was able to make a generous provision for his favourite son's education and, in 1841, installed him, with extensive letters of introduction and ample accommodation, at Peterhouse, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, Thomson was active in sports, athletics and sculling, winning the Colquhoun Sculls in 1843.^[20] He took a lively interest in the classics, music, and literature; but the real love of his intellectual life was the pursuit of science. The study of mathematics, physics, and in particular, of electricity, had captivated his imagination. In 1845 Thomson graduated as second wrangler.^[21] He also won the first Smith's Prize, which, unlike the tripos, is a test of original research. Robert Leslie Ellis, one of the examiners, is said to have declared to another examiner "You and I are just about fit to mend his pens."^[22]

In 1845, he gave the first mathematical development of Michael Faraday's idea that electric induction takes place through an intervening medium, or "dielectric", and not by some incomprehensible "action at a distance". He also devised the mathematical technique of electrical images, which became a powerful agent in solving problems of electrostatics, the science which deals with the forces between electrically charged bodies at rest. It was partly in response to his encouragement that Faraday undertook the research in September 1845 that led to the discovery of the Faraday effect, which established that light and magnetic (and thus electric) phenomena were related.

He was elected a fellow of St. Peter's (as Peterhouse was often called at the time) in June 1845.

Thermodynamics

By 1847, Thomson had already gained a reputation as a precocious and maverick scientist when he attended the

Thomson was intrigued but sceptical. Though he felt that Joule's results demanded theoretical explanation, he retreated into an even deeper commitment to the Carnot–Clapeyron school. He predicted that the melting point of ice must fall with pressure, otherwise its expansion on freezing could be exploited in a perpetuum mobile. Experimental confirmation in his laboratory did much to bolster his beliefs.

In 1848, he extended the Carnot–Clapeyron theory further through his dissatisfaction that the

Thomson returned to critique Carnot's original publication and read his analysis to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in January 1849,^[26] still convinced that the theory was fundamentally sound. However, though Thomson conducted no new experiments, over the next two years he became increasingly dissatisfied with Carnot's theory and convinced of Joule's. In February 1851 he sat down to articulate his new thinking. He was uncertain of how to frame his theory, and the paper went through several drafts before he settled on an attempt to reconcile Carnot and Joule. During his rewriting, he seems to have considered ideas that would subsequently give rise to the second law of thermodynamics. In Carnot's theory, lost heat was absolutely lost, but Thomson contended that it was "lost to man irrecoverably; but not lost in the material world". Moreover, his theological beliefs led Thomson to extrapolate the second law to the cosmos, originating the idea of universal heat death.

I believe the tendency in the material world is for motion to become diffused, and that as a whole the reverse of concentration is gradually going on – I believe that no physical action can ever restore the heat emitted from the Sun, and that this source is not inexhaustible; also that the motions of the Earth and other planets are losing vis viva which is converted into heat; and that although some vis viva may be restored for instance to the earth by heat received from the sun, or by other means, that the loss cannot be precisely compensated and I think it probable that it is under-compensated.^[27]

Compensation would require a creative act or an act possessing similar power,^[27] resulting in a rejuvenating universe (as Thomson had previously compared universal heat death to a clock running slower and slower, although he was unsure whether it would eventually reach thermodynamic equilibrium and stop for ever).^[28] Thomson also formulated the heat death paradox (Kelvin's paradox) in 1862, which uses the second law of thermodynamics to disprove the possibility of an infinitely old universe; this paradox was later extended by William Rankine.^[29]

In final publication, Thomson retreated from a radical departure and declared "the whole theory of the motive power of heat is founded on ... two ... propositions, due respectively to Joule, and to Carnot and Clausius."^[30] Thomson went on to state a form of the second law:

It is impossible, by means of inanimate material agency, to derive mechanical effect from any portion of matter by cooling it below the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects.^[31]

In the paper, Thomson supports the theory that heat was a form of motion but admitts that he had been influenced only by the thought of Sir

Thomson published more than 650 scientific papers[2] and applied for 70 patents (not all were issued). Regarding science, Thomson wrote the following:

In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.^[34]

Transatlantic cable

Calculations on data rate

Though eminent in the academic field, Thomson was obscure to the general public. In September 1852, he married childhood sweetheart Margaret Crum, daughter of

Faraday had demonstrated how the construction of a cable would limit the rate at which messages could be sent—in modern terms, the bandwidth. Thomson jumped at the problem and published his response that month.^[35] He expressed his results in terms of the data rate that could be achieved and the economic consequences in terms of the potential revenue of the transatlantic undertaking. In a further 1855 analysis,^[36] Thomson stressed the impact that the design of the cable would have on its profitability.

Thomson contended that the signalling speed through a given cable was inversely proportional to the square of the length of the cable. Thomson's results were disputed at a meeting of the British Association in 1856 by Wildman Whitehouse, the electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Whitehouse had possibly misinterpreted the results of his own experiments but was doubtless feeling financial pressure as plans for the cable were already well under way. He believed that Thomson's calculations implied that the cable must be "abandoned as being practically and commercially impossible".

Thomson attacked Whitehouse's contention in a letter to the popular Athenaeum magazine,^[37] pitching himself into the public eye. Thomson recommended a larger conductor with a larger cross section of insulation. He thought Whitehouse no fool and suspected that he might have the practical skill to make the existing design work. Thomson's work had attracted the attention of the project's undertakers. In December 1856, he was elected to the board of directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company.

Scientist to engineer

Thomson became scientific adviser to a team with Whitehouse as chief electrician and Sir

Thomson sailed on board the cable-laying ship

A joint committee of inquiry was established by the Board of Trade and the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Most of the blame for the cable's failure was found to rest with Whitehouse.^[41] The committee found that, though underwater cables were notorious in their lack of reliability, most of the problems arose from known and avoidable causes. Thomson was appointed one of a five-member committee to recommend a specification for a new cable. The committee reported in October 1863.^[42]

In July 1865, Thomson sailed on the cable-laying expedition of the

Thomson took part in the laying of the French Atlantic submarine communications cable of 1869, and with Jenkin was engineer of the Western and Brazilian and Platino-Brazilian cables, assisted by vacation student

In June 1873, Thomson and Jenkin were on board the Hooper, bound for Lisbon with 2,500 miles (4,020 km) of cable when the cable developed a fault. An unscheduled 16-day stop-over in Madeira followed, and Thomson became good friends with Charles R. Blandy and his three daughters. On 2 May 1874 he set sail for Madeira on the Lalla Rookh. As he approached the harbour, he signalled to the Blandy residence "Will you marry me?" and Fanny (Blandy's daughter Frances Anna Blandy) signalled back "Yes". Thomson married Fanny, 13 years his junior, on 24 June 1874.

Other contributions

Treatise on Natural Philosophy

Over the period 1855 to 1867, Thomson collaborated with Peter Guthrie Tait on a textbook that founded the study of mechanics first on the mathematics of kinematics, the description of motion without regard to force. The text developed dynamics in various areas but with constant attention to energy as a unifying principle. A second edition appeared in 1879, expanded to two separately bound parts. The textbook set a standard for early education in mathematical physics.

Atmospheric electricity

Thomson made significant contributions to

Between 1870 and 1890 the vortex atom theory, which purported that an atom was a vortex in the aether, was popular among British physicists and mathematicians. Thomson pioneered the theory, which was distinct from the 17th century vortex theory of René Descartes in that Thomson was thinking in terms of a unitary continuum theory, whereas Descartes was thinking in terms of three different types of matter, each relating respectively to emission, transmission, and reflection of light.^[49] About 60 scientific papers were written by approximately 25 scientists. Following the lead of Thomson and Tait,^[50] the branch of topology called knot theory was developed. Thompson's initiative in this complex study that continues to inspire new mathematics has led to persistence of the topic in history of science.^[51]

Marine

Thomson was an enthusiastic yachtsman, his interest in all things relating to the sea perhaps arising from, or fostered by, his experiences on the Agamemnon and the

of finding a ship's position, and calculated a set of tables for its ready application.

During the 1880s, Thomson worked to perfect the adjustable

The Admiralty

.

Scientific biographers of Thomson, if they have paid any attention at all to his compass innovations, have generally taken the matter to be a sorry saga of dim-witted naval administrators resisting marvellous innovations from a superlative scientific mind. Writers sympathetic to the Navy, on the other hand, portray Thomson as a man of undoubted talent and enthusiasm, with some genuine knowledge of the sea, who managed to parlay a handful of modest ideas in compass design into a commercial monopoly for his own manufacturing concern, using his reputation as a bludgeon in the law courts to beat down even small claims of originality from others, and persuading the Admiralty and the law to overlook both the deficiencies of his own design and the virtues of his competitors'.

The truth, inevitably, seems to lie somewhere between the two extremes.^[52]

Charles Babbage had been among the first to suggest that a lighthouse might be made to signal a distinctive number by occultations of its light, but Thomson pointed out the merits of the Morse code for the purpose, and urged that the signals should consist of short and long flashes of the light to represent the dots and dashes.

Electrical standards

Thomson did more than any other electrician up to his time in introducing accurate methods and apparati for measuring electricity. As early as 1845 he pointed out that the experimental results of

FRSE in his electrical experiments.^[53]

In 1893, Thomson headed an international commission to decide on the design of the Niagara Falls power station. Despite his belief in the superiority of direct current electric power transmission, he endorsed Westinghouse's alternating current system which had been demonstrated at the Chicago World's Fair of that year. Even after Niagara Falls, Thomson still held to his belief that direct current was the superior system.^[54]

Acknowledging his contribution to electrical standardisation, the

G.C.V.O., O.M., was unanimously elected first President of the Commission", minutes of the Preliminary Meeting Report read.^[55]

Age of Earth

Kelvin made an early physics-based estimation of the age of Earth. Given his youthful work on the figure of Earth and his interest in heat conduction, it is no surprise that he chose to investigate Earth's cooling and to make historical inferences of Earth's age from his calculations. Thomson was a creationist in a broad sense, but he was not a 'flood geologist'^[56] (a view that had lost mainstream scientific support by the 1840s.^[57][58] He contended that the laws of thermodynamics operated from the birth of the universe and envisaged a dynamic process that saw the organisation and evolution of the Solar System and other structures, followed by a gradual "heat death". He developed the view that Earth had once been too hot to support life and contrasted this view with that of uniformitarianism, that conditions had remained constant since the indefinite past. He contended that "This earth, certainly a moderate number of millions of years ago, was a red-hot globe … ."^[59]

After the publication of

T. H. Huxley. In his response to Huxley's address to the Geological Society of London (1868) he presented his address "Of Geological Dynamics" (1869)^[61] which, among his other writings, challenged the geologists' assertion that Earth must be vastly old, perhaps billions of years in age.^[62]

Thomson's initial 1864 estimate of Earth's age was from 20 to 400 million years old. These wide limits were due to his uncertainty about the melting temperature of rock, to which he equated Earth's interior temperature,[63]^[64] as well as the uncertainty in thermal conductivities and specific heats of rocks. Over the years he refined his arguments and reduced the upper bound by a factor of ten, and in 1897 Thomson, now Lord Kelvin, ultimately settled on an estimate that Earth was 20–40 million years old.^[59][65] In a letter published in Scientific American Supplement 1895 Kelvin criticized geologists' estimates of the age of rocks and the age of Earth, including the views published by Darwin, as "vaguely vast age".^[66]

His exploration of this estimate can be found in his 1897 address to the

thermal conductivity inside Earth, and thus showing a much greater age,^[69] this had little immediate impact. The discovery in 1903 that radioactive decay releases heat led to Kelvin's estimate being challenged, and Ernest Rutherford famously made the argument in a 1904 lecture attended by Kelvin that this provided the unknown energy source Kelvin had suggested, but the estimate was not overturned until the development in 1907 of radiometric dating of rocks.^[62]

The discovery of radioactivity largely invalidated Kelvin's estimate of the age of Earth. Although he eventually paid off a gentleman's bet with Strutt on the importance of radioactivity in Earth's geology, he never publicly acknowledged this because he thought he had a much stronger argument restricting the age of the Sun to no more than 20 million years. Without sunlight, there could be no explanation for the sediment record on Earth's surface. At the time, the only known source for solar energy was

thermonuclear fusion was recognised in the 1930s that Kelvin's age paradox was truly resolved.^[70]

However, modern cosmology recognizes the Kelvin period in the early life of a star, during which it shines from gravitational energy (correctly calculated by Kelvin) before fusion and the main sequence begins.

Later life and death

In the winter of 1860–61 Kelvin slipped on the ice while curling near his home at Netherhall and fractured his leg, causing him to miss the 1861 Manchester meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and to limp thereafter.^[7] He remained something of a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic until his death.

Thomson remained a devout believer in Christianity throughout his life; attendance at chapel was part of his daily routine.^[71] He saw his Christian faith as supporting and informing his scientific work, as is evident from his address to the annual meeting of the Christian Evidence Society^[72] on 23 May 1889.^[73]

In the

Privy Councillor and one of the first members of the new Order of Merit (OM). He received the order from the King on 8 August 1902^[75][76] and was sworn a member of the council at Buckingham Palace on 11 August 1902.^[77] In his later years he often travelled to his town house at 15 Eaton Place, off Eaton Square in London's Belgravia.^[7]

In November 1907 he caught a chill and his condition deteriorated until he died at his Scottish country seat, Netherhall, in Largs on 17 December.[78] At the request of Westminster Abbey, the undertakers Wylie & Lochhead prepared an oak coffin lined with lead. In the dark of the winter evening the cortege set off from Netherhall for Largs railway station, a distance of about a mile. Large crowds witnessed the passing of the cortege, and shopkeepers closed their premises and dimmed their lights. The coffin was placed in a special Midland and Glasgow and South Western Railway van. The train set off at 8:30 pm for Kilmarnock, where the van was attached to the overnight express to St Pancras railway station in London.^[79]

Kelvin's funeral was on 23 December 1907.

choir screen, and close to the graves of Isaac Newton, John Herschel, and Charles Darwin.^[80] Darwin's son, Sir George Darwin, was one of the pall-bearers.^[81]

The University of Glasgow held a memorial service for Kelvin in the Bute Hall. Kelvin had been a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, attached to St Columba's Episcopal Church in Largs, and when in Glasgow to St Mary's Episcopal Church (now, St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow).^[79] At the same time as the funeral in Westminster Abbey, a service was held in St Columba's Episcopal Church, Largs, attended by a large congregation including burgh dignitaries.^[82]

Lord Kelvin is memorialised on the Thomson family grave in Glasgow Necropolis. The family grave has a second modern memorial, erected by the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow; a society of which he was president in the periods 1856–58 and 1874–77.^[83]

Legacy

Limits of classical physics

In 1884, Lord Kelvin led a

A. S. Hathaway took notes and duplicated them with a papyrograph. As the subject matter was under active development, Kelvin amended that text and in 1904 it was typeset and published. Kelvin's attempts to provide mechanical models ultimately failed in the electromagnetic regime. Starting from his lecture in 1884, he was the first scientist to formulate the hypothetical concept of dark matter; he then attempted to define and locate some "dark bodies" in the Milky Way.^[85][86]

He was skeptical about Maxwell's prediction of radiation pressure, but admitted that it did exist after seeing Lebedew's experimental proof of radiation pressure.^[87]

On 27 April 1900 he gave a widely reported lecture titled "Nineteenth-Century Clouds over the Dynamical Theory of Heat and Light" to the Royal Institution.^[88][89] The two "dark clouds" he was alluding to were confusion surrounding how matter moves through the aether (including the puzzling results of the Michelson–Morley experiment) and indications that the equipartition theorem in statistical mechanics might break down. Two major physical theories were developed during the 20th century starting from these issues: for the former, the theory of relativity; for the second, quantum mechanics. In 1905 Albert Einstein published the so-called annus mirabilis papers, one of which explained the photoelectric effect based on Max Planck's discovery of energy quanta which was the foundation of quantum mechanics, another of which described special relativity, and the last of which explained Brownian motion in terms of statistical mechanics, providing a strong argument for the existence of atoms.

Pronouncements later proven to be false

Like many scientists, Thomson made some mistakes in predicting the future of technology.

His biographer Silvanus P. Thompson writes that "When Röntgen's discovery of the X-rays was announced at the end of 1895, Lord Kelvin was entirely skeptical, and regarded the announcement as a hoax. The papers had been full of the wonders of Röntgen's rays, about which Lord Kelvin was intensely skeptical until Röntgen himself sent him a copy of his Memoir"; on 17 January 1896, having read the paper and seen the photographs, he wrote Röntgen a letter saying that "I need not tell you that when I read the paper I was very much astonished and delighted. I can say no more now than to congratulate you warmly on the great discovery you have made"^[90] Kelvin had his own hand X-rayed in May 1896.^[91]

His forecast for practical aviation (i.e., heavier-than-air aircraft) was negative. In 1896 he refused an invitation to join the Aeronautical Society, writing "I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of."^[92] In a 1902 newspaper interview he predicted that "No balloon and no aeroplane will ever be practically successful."^[93]

A statement falsely attributed to Kelvin is: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." This has been widely misattributed to Kelvin since the 1980s, either without citation or stating that it was made in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1900).^[94] There is no evidence that Kelvin said this,^[95][96] and the quote is instead a paraphrase of Albert A. Michelson, who in 1894 stated: "… it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established … An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals."^[96] Similar statements were given earlier by others, such as Philipp von Jolly.^[97] The attribution to Kelvin in 1900 is presumably a confusion with his "Two clouds" lecture and which on the contrary pointed out areas that would subsequently see revolutions.

In 1898, Kelvin predicted that only 400 years of oxygen supply remained on the planet, due to the rate of burning combustibles.

cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus

—which accounts for more than half of marine photosynthesis—was not discovered until 1986.

Eponyms

Further information: List of things named after Lord Kelvin

A variety of physical phenomena and concepts with which Thomson is associated are named Kelvin, including:

• Kelvin bridge (also known as Thomson bridge)
• Kelvin functions
• Kelvin–Helmholtz instability
• Kelvin–Helmholtz luminosity
• Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism
• Kelvin material
• Joule–Kelvin effect
• Kelvin sensing
• Kelvin transform in potential theory
• Kelvin wake pattern
• Kelvin water dropper
• Kelvin wave
• Kelvin's heat death paradox
• Kelvin's circulation theorem
• Kelvin–Stokes theorem
• Kelvin–Varley divider
• The
  SI unit of temperature, kelvin

Mount Kelvin in New Zealand's Paparoa Range was named after him by botanist William Trownson.^[100]

Honours

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
  , 1847.
  • Keith Medal, 1864.
  • Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize, 1887.
  • President, 1873–1878, 1886–1890, 1895–1907.
• Foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1851.
• Fellow of the Royal Society, 1851.
  • Royal Medal, 1856.
  • Copley Medal, 1883.
  • President, 1890–1895.
• Hon. Member of the Royal College of Preceptors (
  College of Teachers
  ), 1858.
• Hon. Member of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, 1859.^[101]
• Knighted 1866.^[102]
• Commander of the Imperial Order of the Rose (Brazil), 1873.
• Commander of the Legion of Honour (France), 1881.
  • Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, 1889.
• Knight of the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite, 1884.
• Commander of the Order of Leopold (Belgium), 1890.
• Baron Kelvin, of
  County of Ayr, 1892.^[103] The title derives from the River Kelvin, which runs by the grounds of the University of Glasgow. His title died with him, as he was survived by neither heirs nor close relations.

  

  next to the University of Glasgow
• Knight Grand Cross of the Victorian Order, 1896.^[104]
• Honorary degree
  Legum doctor (LL.D.), Yale University, 5 May 1902.^[105]
• One of the first members of the
  Order of Merit, 1902.^[106]
• Privy Counsellor, 11 August 1902.^[77]
• Honorary degree Doctor mathematicae from the
  Royal Frederick University on 6 September 1902, when they celebrated the centenary of the birth of mathematician Niels Henrik Abel.^[107][108]
• First international recipient of John Fritz Medal, 1905.
• Order of the First Class of the Sacred Treasure of Japan, 1901.
• He is buried in Westminster Abbey, London next to Isaac Newton.
• Lord Kelvin was commemorated on the £20 note issued by the Clydesdale Bank in 1971; in the current issue of banknotes, his image appears on the bank's £100 note. He is shown holding his adjustable compass and in the background is a map of the transatlantic cable.^[109]
• In 2011 he was inducted to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.^[110]
• World Refrigeration Day, is 26 June. It was chosen to celebrate his birth date and has been held annually, since 2019.

Arms

Coat of arms of Lord Kelvin

Notes The arms of Lord Kelvin consist of:[111] Crest A cubit arm erect, vested azure, cuffed argent, the hand grasping five ears of rye proper. Escutcheon Argent, a stag's head caboshed gules, on a chief azure a thunderbolt proper, winged or, between two spur revels of the first. Supporters On the dexter side a student of the University of Glasgow, habited, holding in his dexter hand a marine voltmeter, all proper. On the sinister side a sailor, habited, holding in the dexter hand a coil, the rope passing through the sinister, and suspended therefrom a sinker of a sounding machine, also all proper. Motto Honesty without fear.

See also

• Taylor column
• People on Scottish banknotes
• List of presidents of the Royal Society

References

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14. ^ "Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1783–2002" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
15. ^ "David Thomson 17 Nov 1817 – 31st Jan 1880". Aberdeen University.
16. ^ P.Q.R. (1841). "On Fourier's expansions of functions in trigonometric series". Cambridge Mathematical Journal. 2: 258–262.
17. ^ P.Q.R. (1841). "Note on a passage in Fourier's 'Heat'". Cambridge Mathematical Journal. 3: 25–27.
18. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511996009.004
    .
19. ^ Niven, W.D., ed. (1965). The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, 2 vols. Vol. 2. New York: Dover. p. 301.
20. ISBN 0-9506181-0-1
    .
21. ^ "Thomson, William (THN841W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
22. ^ Thompson, Silvanus (1910). The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. Vol. 1. MacMillan and Co., Limited. p. 98.
23. ^ McCartney, Mark (1 December 2002). "William Thomson: king of Victorian physics". Physics World. Archived from the original on 15 July 2008. Retrieved 16 July 2008.
24. ISBN 978-0-19-517127-3
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25. ISBN 978-1-108-02898-1
    .
26. ISBN 978-1-108-02898-1
    .
27. ^ ^{a b} Sharlin, p. 112.
28. ^ Otis, Laura (2002). "Literature and Science in the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology". OUP Oxford. Vol. 1. pp. 60–67.
29. ^ Thomson, William (1862). "On the Age of the Sun's Heat". Macmillan's Magazine. Vol. 5. pp. 388–393.
30. ISBN 978-1-108-02898-1
    .
31. ^ Thomson, W. (March 1851). "On the Dynamical Theory of Heat, with numerical results deduced from Mr Joule's equivalent of a Thermal Unit, and M. Regnault's Observations on Steam". Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. XX (part II): 261–268, 289–298. Also published in Thomson, W. (December 1852). "On the Dynamical Theory of Heat, with numerical results deduced from Mr Joule's equivalent of a Thermal Unit, and M. Regnault's Observations on Steam". Phil. Mag. 4. IV (22): 8–21.
32. ^ Thomson, W. (1851) p.183
33. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511996009.050
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34. ISBN 978-0-598-77599-3
    . Retrieved 25 June 2012.
35. ISBN 978-1-108-02899-8
    .
36. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511996016.011
    .
37. ISBN 978-1-108-02899-8
    .
38. ISBN 978-1-108-02899-8
    .
39. ^ Sharlin, p. 141.
40. ^ Sharlin, p. 144.
41. ^ "Board of Trade Committee to Inquire into … Submarine Telegraph Cables', Parl. papers (1860), 52.591, no. 2744
42. ^ "Report of the Scientific Committee Appointed to Consider the Best Form of Cable for Submersion Between Europe and America" (1863)
43. ISBN 978-0-393-60883-0
    .
44. ^ "Lord Kelvin's sailing yacht 'Lalla Rookh', c 1860–1900". stock images.
45. ^
    S2CID 9783512
    .
46. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.12.053
    .
47. S2CID 122673748
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48. S2CID 73530372
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49. doi:10.1034/j.1600-0498.2002.440102.x
    . Retrieved 9 March 2019.
50. doi:10.1017/S0370164600045430
    .
51. S2CID 144988108
    .
52. ^ Lindley, p. 259
53. ^ "Maclean, Magnus, 1857–1937, electrical engineer". University of Strathclyde Archives. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
54. ^ Lindley, p. 293
55. ^ IEC. "1906 Preliminary Meeting Report, pp 46–48" (PDF). The minutes from our first meeting. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
56. ^ Sharlin, p. 169.
57. ISBN 978-0-674-44075-3
    .
58. ISBN 978-0-8308-2876-0
    .
59. ^
    ISBN 978-0-226-08043-7
    .
60. ISBN 978-0-8018-4391-4
    .
61. ^ ""Of Geological Dynamics" excerpts". Zapatopi.net. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
62. ^ ^{a b} Kelvin did pay off gentleman's bet with Strutt on the importance of radioactivity in the Earth. The Kelvin period does exist in the evolution of stars. They shine from gravitational energy for a while (correctly calculated by Kelvin) before fusion and the main sequence begins. Fusion was not understood until well after Kelvin's time. England, P.; Molnar, P.; Righter, F. (January 2007). "John Perry's neglected critique of Kelvin's age for the Earth: A missed opportunity in geodynamics". GSA Today. 17 (1): 4–9.
    doi:10.1130/GSAT01701A.1
    .
63. ISBN 9780691116426
    . pp. 243–251. In Thomson's theory the Earth's age is proportional to the square of the difference between interior temperature and surface temperature, so that the uncertainty in the former leads to an even larger relative uncertainty in the age.
64. S2CID 126038615
    .
65. ISBN 978-0-02-349381-2
    .
66. ^ Heuel-Fabianek, Burkhard. "Natürliche Radioisotope: die "Atomuhr" für die Bestimmung des absoluten Alters von Gesteinen und archäologischen Funden". StrahlenschutzPraxis. 1/2017: 31–42.
67. ISBN 978-0-8284-0292-7
    .
68. ISBN 978-0-8284-0292-7
    .
69. ^ Perry, John (1895) "On the age of the earth," Nature, 51 : 224–227, 341–342, 582–585. (51:224, 51:341, 51:582 at Internet Archive)
70. doi:10.1029/2000JB900028
    .
71. ^ McCartney & Whitaker (2002), reproduced on Institute of Physics website
72. ^ Thomson, W. (1889) Address to the Christian Evidence Society
73. ^ The Finality of this Globe, Hampshire Telegraph, 15 June 1889, p. 11.
74. ^ "The Coronation Honours". The Times. No. 36804. London. 26 June 1902. p. 5.
75. ^ "Court Circular". The Times. No. 36842. London. 9 August 1902. p. 6.
76. ^ "No. 27470". The London Gazette. 2 September 1902. p. 5679.
77. ^ ^{a b} "No. 27464". The London Gazette. 12 August 1902. p. 5173.
78. ^ "Death of Lord Kelvin". Times
79. ^ ^{a b} The Scotsman, 23 December 1907
80. ^ Hall, Alfred Rupert (1966) The Abbey Scientists. London: Roger & Robert Nicholson. p. 62.
81. ^ Glasgow Herald, 24 December 1907
82. ^ Glasgow Evening Times, 23 December 1907
83. ISBN 978-0-9544965-0-0. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 24 November 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
84. ISBN 0-262-11117-9
85. ^ "How dark matter became a particle". CERN Courier. 13 April 2017. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
86. ^ "A History of Dark Matter- Gianfranco Bertone & Dan Hooper". ned.ipac.caltech.edu.
87. ISSN 0038-5670
    .
88. ^ "Lord Kelvin, Nineteenth Century Clouds over the Dynamical Theory of Heat and Light", reproduced in Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain with Abstracts of the Discourses, Volume 16, p. 363–397
89. ^ The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 6, volume 2, pages 1–40 (1901)
90. ^ Thompson, Silvanus (1910). The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. Vol. 2. MacMillan and Co., Limited.
91. ^ The Royal Society, London
92. ^ Letter from Lord Kelvin to Baden Powell 8 December 1896
93. ^ Interview in the Newark Advocate 26 April 1902
94. ISBN 9780521437752
95. ISBN 9781416586913
96. ^
    ISBN 9780553061741
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98. ^ "Papers Past—Evening Post—30 July 1898—A Startling Scientific Prediction". Paperspast.natlib.govt.nz. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
99. ^ "The Evening News – Google News Archive Search". Archived from the original on 12 July 2012.
100. ^ "Place name detail: Mount Kelvin". New Zealand Gazetteer. New Zealand Geographic Board. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
101. ^ "Honorary Members and Fellows". Institution of Engineers in Scotland. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
102. ^ "No. 23185". The London Gazette. 16 November 1866. p. 6062.
103. ^ "No. 26260". The London Gazette. 23 February 1892. p. 991.
104. ^ "No. 26758". The London Gazette. 14 July 1896. p. 4026.
105. ^ "Court Circular". The Times. No. 36760. London. 6 May 1902. p. 5.
106. ^ "No. 27470". The London Gazette. 2 September 1902. p. 5679.
107. ^ "Foreign degrees for British men of Science". The Times. No. 36867. London. 8 September 1902. p. 4.
108. ^ "Honorary doctorates from the University of Oslo 1902–1910". (in Norwegian)
109. ^ "Current Banknotes : Clydesdale Bank". The Committee of Scottish Clearing Bankers. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
110. ^ "Lord Kelvin biography – Science Hall of Fame – National Library of Scotland". digital.nls.uk. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
111. ^ Thompson, Silvanus (1910). The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. Vol. 2. MacMillan and Co., Limited. p. 914.

Cited sources

• Lindley, D. (2004). Degrees Kelvin: A Tale of Genius, Invention and Tragedy. Joseph Henry Press.
  ISBN 978-0-309-09073-5
  .
• Sharlin, H. I. (1979). Lord Kelvin: The Dynamic Victorian. Pennsylvania State University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-271-00203-3
  .

Kelvin's works

• Thomson, W.; Tait, P. G. (1867). Treatise on Natural Philosophy. Oxford. 2nd edition, 1883. (reissued by
  ISBN 978-1-108-00537-1
  )
  • Treatise on Natural Philosophy (Part I) (Internet Archive)
  • Treatise on Natural Philosophy (Part II) (Internet Archive)
• ——; Tait, P. G (1872). Elements of Natural Philosophy. At the University press. (reissued by
  ISBN 978-1-108-01448-9
  ) 2nd edition, 1879.
• Elasticity and heat. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black. 1880.
• Thomson, W. (1881). Shakespeare and Bacon on Vivisection. Sands & McDougall.
• ——; Tait, P. G (1872). Elements of Natural Philosophy. At the University press. (reissued by
  ISBN 978-1-108-01448-9
  ) 2nd edition, 1879.
• —— (1882–1911). Mathematical and Physical Papers. Cambridge University Press. (6 volumes)
  • Volume I. 1841–1853 (Internet Archive)
  • Volume II. 1853–1856 (Internet Archive)
  • Volume III. Elasticity, heat, electro-magnetism (Internet Archive)
  • Volume IV. Hydrodynamics and general dynamics (Hathitrust)
  • Volume V. Thermodynamics, cosmical and geological physics, molecular and crystalline theory, electrodynamics (Internet Archive)
  • Volume VI. Voltaic theory, radioactivity, electrions, navigation and tides, miscellaneous (Internet Archive)
• —— (1904). Baltimore Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light.
  ISBN 978-1-108-00767-2
  )
• —— (1912). "Collected Papers in Physics and Engineering". Nature. 90 (2256): 563–565.
  S2CID 3957852
  .
• Wilson, D. B., ed. (1990). The Correspondence Between Sir George Gabriel Stokes and Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. (2 vols), Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-521-32831-9
  .
• Hörz, H. (2000). Naturphilosophie als Heuristik?: Korrespondenz zwischen Hermann von Helmholtz und Lord Kelvin (William Thomson). Basilisken-Presse.
  ISBN 978-3-925347-56-6
  .

Biography, history of ideas and criticism

• Buchwald, J. Z. (1977). "William Thomson and the mathematization of Faraday's electrostatics". Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences. 8: 101–136.
  JSTOR 27757369
  .
• Cardoso Dias, D.M. (1996). "William Thomson and the Heritage of Caloric".
  doi:10.1080/00033799600200361
  .
• Gooding, D. (1980). "Faraday, Thomson, and the concept of the magnetic field". British Journal for the History of Science. 13 (2): 91–120.
  S2CID 145573114
  .
• Gossick, B. R. (1976). "Heaviside and Kelvin: a study in contrasts". Annals of Science. 33 (3): 275–287.
  doi:10.1080/00033797600200561
  .
• Gray, A. (1908). Lord Kelvin: An Account of His Scientific Life and Work. London: J. M. Dent & Co.
• Green, G. & Lloyd, J. T. (1970). "Kelvin's instruments and the Kelvin Museum". American Journal of Physics. 40 (3): 496.
  ISBN 978-0-85261-016-9
  .
• Hearn, Chester G. (2004). Circuits in the Sea: the men, the ships, and the Atlantic cable. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
• Kargon, Robert; Achinstein, Peter; Brown, Laurie M. (1987). Kargon, R. H.; Achinstein, P. (eds.). "Kelvin's Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics; Historical and Philosophical Perspectives". Physics Today. 42 (1): 82–84.
  ISBN 978-0-262-11117-1
  .
• King, A. G. (1925). "Kelvin the Man". Nature. 117 (2933): 79.
  S2CID 4094894
  .
• King, E. T. (1909). "Lord Kelvin's Early Home". Nature. 82 (2099): 331–333.
  S2CID 3974629
  .
• Knudsen, O. (1972). "From Lord Kelvin's notebook: aether speculations". Centaurus. 16 (1): 41–53.
  doi:10.1111/j.1600-0498.1972.tb00164.x
  .
• Lekner, J. (2012). "Nurturing genius: the childhood and youth of Kelvin and Maxwell" (PDF). New Zealand Science Review.
• McCartney, M.; Whitaker, A., eds. (2002). Physicists of Ireland: Passion and Precision. Institute of Physics Publishing.
  ISBN 978-0-7503-0866-3
  .
• May, W. E. (1979). "Lord Kelvin and his compass". Journal of Navigation. 32: 122–134.
  S2CID 122538244
  .
• Munro, J. (1891). Heroes of the Telegraph. London: Religious Tract Society.
• Murray, D. (1924). Lord Kelvin as Professor in the Old College of Glasgow. Glasgow: Maclehose & Jackson.
• Russell, A. (1912). Lord Kelvin: His Life and Work. London: T. C. & E. C.Jack. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
• Smith, C. & Wise, M. N. (1989). Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin. Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-521-26173-9
  . Retrieved 25 March 2014.
• Thompson, S. P. (1910). Life of William Thomson: Baron Kelvin of Largs. London: Macmillan. In two volumes Volume 1 Volume 2
• Tunbridge, P. (1992). Lord Kelvin: His Influence on Electrical Measurements and Units. Peter Peregrinus: London.
  ISBN 978-0-86341-237-0
  .
• Wilson, D. (1910). William Thomson, Lord Kelvin: His Way of Teaching. Glasgow: John Smith & Son.
• Wilson, D. B. (1987). Kelvin and Stokes: A Comparative Study in Victorian Physics. Bristol: Hilger.
  ISBN 978-0-85274-526-7
  .

External links

Wikisource has original works by or about:
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

Wikiquote has quotations related to Lord Kelvin.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Kelvin, William Thomson, Baron".

• Works by Lord Kelvin at Project Gutenberg
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Lord Kelvin", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• Works by or about Lord Kelvin at Internet Archive
• Works by Lord Kelvin at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Heroes of the Telegraph at
  The Online Books Page
• "Horses on Mars", from Lord Kelvin
• William Thomson: king of Victorian physics at Institute of Physics website
• Measuring the Absolute: William Thomson and Temperature Archived 2 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Hasok Chang and Sang Wook Yi (PDF file)
• Reprint of papers on electrostatics and magnetism (gallica)
• The molecular tactics of a crystal (Internet Archive)
• Quotations. This collection includes sources for many quotes.
• Kelvin Building Opening – The Leys School, Cambridge (1893)
• The Kelvin Library

Professional and academic associations
Preceded by George Stokes	36th President of the Royal Society 1890–1895	Succeeded by Joseph Lister
Academic offices
Preceded by The Earl of Stair	Chancellor of the University of Glasgow 1904–1907	Succeeded by The Earl of Rosebery