Lord kelvin
Lord kelvinWilliam Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) was arguably the most famous member of the department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow. He was born on the 26 June 1824 in Belfast Ireland, and was part of a large family whose mother died when he was aged six. His father taught Kelvin and his brothers mathematics to a level beyond that of university courses of the time.
Kelvin's father accepted a post at the University of Glasgow in 1834. At the same time, Kelvin entered the University, aged 10, and had his first papers published at the ages of 16 and 17. These papers contained an argument defending the work of Fourier (Fourier transforms), which at that time was being heavily criticized by British scientists. He showed that Fourier's mathematics could be applied to other physical phenomena other than that of heat flow, where it was original applied. At the age of fifteen Kelvin wrote an essay which he called "An Essay on the Figure of Earth." Kelvin used this essay as a source and inspiration for ideas all of his life and won an award from the University.
In 1841 he entered the University of Cambridge, graduating with a B.A honors degree four years later. Kelvin then went on to Paris to carry out work in a laboratory in order to gain practical experience and competence in experimental work.
At the age of only 22 Kelvin was elected to professor of physics (the 'chair of natural philosophy') as a result of a very well organized campaign run by his father, who was still a professor of mathematics. Kelvin remained at the University of Glasgow for the rest of his working life. He was a practical man, and on occasion during lectures on the conservation of momentum he would give a demonstration of this to his students. At one end of the lecture room he would suspend a large block of wood like a pendulum and at the other he would have a gun. By firing the gun at the block of wood the bullet would become embedded in an unrealistic collision passing momentum to the combined block of wood and bullet. By measuring the amplitude of the oscillation, the momentum and speed of the bullet could be calculated. Needless to say, this experiment was eventually stopped for safety reasons, though no one was ever known to be injured.
Kelvin first defined the absolute temperature scale in 1847, which was later named after him. In 1851 he published the paper, "On the Dynamical Theory of Heat", and in the same year was elected to the Royal Society. This work contained his ideas and version of the second law of thermodynamics as well as recognition of James Joule's idea of the mechanical equivalent of heat. This idea claimed that heat and motion were combined, an idea that is now taken as second nature - where there's motion there's heat and vice versa, in some...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.