Reference
- Kelvin, William Thomson (1824-1907) 1st Baron KelvinIrish physicist who first proposed the use of the absolute scale of temperature, in which the degree of temperature is now called the kelvin in his honour. Thomson also made other substantial contributions to thermodynamics and the theory of electricity and magnetism, and he was largely responsible for the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable.
Kelvin was born William Thomson in Belfast on 26 June 1824. His father was professor of mathematics at Belfast University and both he and his older brother James Thomson, who also became a prominent physicist, were educated at home by their father. In 1832 Thomson's father took up the post of professor of mathematics at Glasgow University, and Thomson himself entered the university two years later at the age of ten to study natural philosophy (science). In 1841, Thomson went on to Cambridge University, graduating in 1845. He then travelled to Paris to work with Henri Regnault and in 1846 took up the position of professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow, where he created the first physics laboratory in a British university. Among his many honours were a knighthood in 1866, the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883, the presidency of the Royal Society 1890-94, and a peerage in 1892, when he took the title Baron Kelvin of Largs. Kelvin retired from his chair at Glasgow in 1899 and died in Largs, Ayrshire, on 17 December 1907.
Thomson's early work, begun in 1842 while he was still at Cambridge, was a comparison of the distribution of electrostatic force in a region with the distribution of heat through a solid. He found that they are mathematically equivalent, leading him in 1847 to conclude that electrical and magnetic fields are distributed in a manner analogous to the transfer of energy through an elastic solid. James Clerk Maxwell later developed this idea into a comprehensive explanation of the electromagnetic field. From 1849-59, Kelvin also developed the discoveries and theories of paramagnetism and diamagnetism made by Michael Faraday into a full theory of magnetism, developing the terms magnetic permeability and susceptibility, and arriving at an expression for the total energy of a system of magnets. In electricity, Kelvin obtained an expression for the energy possessed by a circuit carrying a current and in 1853 developed a theory of oscillating circuits that was experimentally verified in 1857 and was later used in the production of radio waves...
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Perspectives
Lord Kelvin
Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), arguably Britain's most eminent scientist after Newton, spent much of his life in work which led to the development of today's electrical units and standards. Despite his influence, there are few biographies of stature (largely due to the abstruse nature of much of his technical research). This treatment concentrates upon his work in three phases; discovery of the fundamental concepts and coding them into universal laws, leading the adoption of the metric system, and securing worldwide use of units and standards (now the IEC system).
Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth
Burchfield charts the enormous impact made by Lord Kelvin's application of thermodynamic laws to the question of the earth's age and the heated debate his ideas sparked among British Victorian physicists, astronomers, geologists, and biologists. Anyone interested in geologic time, and that should include all geologists and a fair smattering of biologists, physicists and chemists, should make Burchfield's commendable and time-tested volume part of their personal library.
Degrees Kelvin
In 1840, a precocious 16-year-old by the name of William Thomson spent his summer studying an extraordinarily sophisticated mathematical controversy. His brilliant analysis made the boy an instant intellectual celebrity. As a young scholar William dazzled a Victorian society enthralled with the seductive authority and powerful beauty of scientific discovery, laying the groundwork for the theories of electromagnetism and thermodynamics. Moving beyond pure science, he worked out a theory for signal transmission along undersea telegraph cables and designed instruments that made the first transatlantic link a success. Charismatic, confident, and boyishly handsome, Thomson was elevated to the peerage by the Queen for his achievements. Indeed, his name survives in the designation of degrees Kelvin, the temperature scale on which absolute zero is defined. Lauded for his brilliance, Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, was Great Britain's unrivaled scientific hero. But as the century drew to a close, and Queen Victoria's reign ended, this legendary scientific mind also shut down. The great physicist was publicly dubious about the existence of atoms. He refused to believe that radioactivity involved the transmutation of elements. And he vehemently opposed Charles Darwin's views on the origin of species. This pioneer of modern science spent his waning years arguing that the Earth and the Sun could not be more than 100 million years old. In the end Thomson came to stand for all that was old and complacent in the world of 19th-century science. Unraveling the mystery of a life composed of equal parts of triumph and tragedy, hubris and humility, this new biography yields a surprising and compellingportrait of a complex and enigmatic man.
Kelvins
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
See a balloon demonstration of expansion and contraction; different gases expand and contract by the same amount as temperatures change. Lord Kelvin determines that minus 273ºC is the coldest possible temperature and creates the Kelvin Scale.
Online Resources
- Fluid dynamics: Lord Kelvin's vortex ringsThis article discusses research on knotted and linked vortices, referencing a study by Dustin Kleckner and William Irvine published a 2013 issue of "Nature Physics." The researchers utilized a three-dimensional printer that could form airfoils that are capable of launching knotted vortices. It is noted that the physics of linked vortices influence each other, generally making particle paths helical.
- Lord Kelvin's isotropic helicoidNearly 150 years ago, Lord Kelvin proposed the isotropic helicoid, a particle with isotropic yet chiral interactions with a fluid, so that translation couples to rotation. An implementation of his design fabricated with a three-dimensional printer is found experimentally to have no detectable translation-rotation coupling, although the particle point-group symmetry allows this coupling. We explain these results by demonstrating that in Stokes flow, the chiral coupling of such isotropic helicoids made out of non-chiral vanes is due only to hydrodynamic interactions between these vanes. Therefore it is small. In summary, Kelvin's predicted isotropic helicoid exists, but only as a weak breaking of a symmetry of non-interacting vanes in Stokes flow.
Absolute Zero and Triple Points
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowLord Kelvin devises a temperature scale that starts at absolute zero. Triple point is where a substance can exist simultaneously as a gas, liquid, and solid.
Putting Dates to the Past
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowHow do we put dates to the past? Learn about how we estimated the Earth’s age and the scientists who played a role, including Archbishop Ussher, Lord Kelvin, Arthur Holmes, and Willard Libby. This program will cover relative dating methods, absolute dating techniques, dendrochronology, radioactive absolute dating, carbon-14, and the Laetoli site and its significance. We’ll also explore the four main eras of human history: Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic.