British physicist, engineer and mathematician (1824–1907)
For other people named William Thomson, see William Thomson (disambiguation).
The Right Honourable
The Lord Kelvin
OM GCVO PC PRS FRSE
Kelvin, c. 1900, by T. & R. Annan & Sons
President of the Royal Society
In office 1 December 1890 – 30 November 1895
Preceded by
Sir George Stokes
Succeeded by
The Lord Lister
Personal details
Born
(1824-06-26)26 June 1824 Belfast, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Died
17 December 1907(1907-12-17) (aged 83) Largs, Scotland
Nationality
British[1][2]
Political party
Liberal (1865–1886) Liberal Unionist (from 1886)
Spouses
Margaret Crum
(m. 1852; died 1870)
Frances Blandy
(m. 1874–posthumous year)
[3]
Children
None[4]
Signature
Alma mater
Royal Belfast Academical Institution
Glasgow University
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Known for
List
Joule–Thomson effect
Joule-Thomson ideal gas coefficient
Voigt–Thomson law
Thomson effect (thermoelectric)
Thomson relations
Kelvin balance
Kelvin's balls
Kelvin cat's eye pattern
Kelvin coupling
Kelvin's mirror galvanometer
Kelvin material
Kelvin water dropper
Kelvin wave
Kelvin–Helmholtz instability
Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism
Kelvin-Helmholtz luminosity
Kelvin-Planck statement
Kelvin's heat death paradox
Kelvin–Helmholtz time scale
Kelvin's minimum energy theorem
Kelvin conjecture
Kelvin structure
Kelvin foam
Kelvin functions
Kelvin transform
Kelvin's circulation theorem
Kelvin–Stokes theorem
Kelvin bridge
Kelvin sensing
Kelvin equation
Kelvin-Varley divider
Kelvin wake pattern
Kelvin angle
Zero Kelvin
Kelvin probe force microscope
Kelvin scanning probe
Automatic curb sender
Cable theory
Dark night sky paradox
Earth's age paradox
Depth sounding
Dissipation
Gyrostat
Law of squares
First law of thermodynamics
Second law of thermodynamics
Entropy
Heat death of the universe
Magnetic vector potential
Magnetoresistance
Maxwell's demon
Piezoresistive effect
Siphon recorder
Stationary phase approximation
Dark matter
Tide-predicting machine
Vortex theory of the atom
Coining the term chirality
Coining the term thermodynamics[6]
Coining the term kinetic energy
Awards
First Smith's Prize (1845)
Royal Medal (1856)
Keith Medal (1864)
Matteucci Medal (1876)
Albert Medal (1879)
Copley Medal (1883)
John Fritz Medal (1905)
Scientific career
Institutions
University of Glasgow
Academic advisors
William Hopkins
Notable students
Lord Rayleigh[5]
William Edward Ayrton
It is believed the "PNP" in his signature stands for "Professor of Natural Philosophy". Kelvin also wrote under the pseudonym "P. Q. R."
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, OM, GCVO, PC, FRS, FRSE (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907)[7] was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast.[8] He was the professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, where he undertook significant research and mathematical analysis of electricity, the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and contributed significantly to unifying physics, which was then in its infancy of development as an emerging academic discipline. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883 and served as its president from 1890 to 1895. In 1892, he became the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords.[2]
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 ennobled in 1892 in recognition of his achievements in thermodynamics, and of his opposition to Irish Home Rule,[9][10][11] becoming Baron Kelvin, of Largs in the County of Ayr. The title refers to the River Kelvin, which flows near his laboratory at the University of Glasgow's Gilmorehill home at Hillhead. Despite offers of elevated posts from several world-renowned universities, Kelvin refused to leave Glasgow, remaining until his retirement from that post in 1899.[7] Active in industrial research and development, he was recruited around 1899 by George Eastman to serve as vice-chairman of the board of the British company Kodak Limited, affiliated with Eastman Kodak.[12] In 1904 he became chancellor of the University of Glasgow.[7]
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.
^Grabiner, Judy (2002). "Creators of Mathematics: The Irish Connection (book review)" (PDF). Irish Math. Soc. Bull. 48: 67. doi:10.33232/BIMS.0048.65.68. Retrieved 27 June 2016.
^ abSharlin, Harold I. (2019). "William Thomson, Baron Kelvin". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
^"Significant Scots. William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)". Electric Scotland. Retrieved 23 July 2018.
^"William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. Scientist, Mathematician and Engineer". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 23 July 2018. His first wife was Margaret Crum and he married secondly Frances Blandy but had no children.
^Ranford, Paul (September 2019). John William Strutt-- the 3rd Baron Rayleigh (1842–1919): Recently studied correspondence. p. 25.
^Thomson, William (1849). "An Account of Carnot's Theory of the Motive Power of Heat; with Numerical Results deduced from Regnault's Experiments on Steam". Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 16 (5): 541–574. doi:10.1017/s0080456800022481. S2CID 120335729.
^ abcCite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Multiple sources:
Martin, Elizabeth, ed. (2009), "Kelvin, Sir William Thomson, Lord", The New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199545155.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-954515-5, British theoretical and experimental physicist
Knowles, Elizabeth, ed. (2014), Lord Kelvin Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (8th ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199668700.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-966870-0, Lord Kelvin 1824–1907 British physicist and natural philosopher
Clapham, Christopher; Nicholson, James, eds. (2014), "Kelvin, Lord", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199679591.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967959-1, Kelvin, Lord (1824–1907) The British mathematician, physicist and engineer
Schaschke, Carl, ed. (2014), "Kelvin, Lord", A Dictionary of Chemical Engineering, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199651450.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-965145-0, A Belfast-born Scottish scientist
Ridpath, Ian, ed. (2018), "Kelvin, Lord", A Dictionary of Astronomy (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780191851193.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-185119-3, Kelvin, Lord (William Thomson) (1824–1907) Scottish physicist
Ratcliffe, Susan, ed. (2018). Lord Kelvin Oxford Essential Quotations (6th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780191866692.001.0001. Lord Kelvin 1824–1907 British scientist
Rennie, Richard; Law, Jonathan, eds. (2019), "Kelvin, Lord", A Dictionary of Physics (8th ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198821472.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-882147-2, Kelvin, Lord (William Thomson; 1824–1907) British physicist
Law, Jonathan; Rennie, Richard, eds. (2020), "Kelvin, Lord", A Dictionary of Chemistry (8th ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198841227.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-884122-7, Kelvin, Lord (William Thomson; 1824–1907) British physicist, born in Belfast
^Flood, Raymond; McCartney, Mark; Whitaker, Andrew (28 April 2009). "Kelvin and Ireland". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 158: 011001. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/158/1/011001. S2CID 250690809.
^Randall, Lisa (2005). Warped Passages. New York: HarperCollins. p. 162. ISBN 0-06-053109-6.
^Hutchison, Iain (2009). "Lord Kelvin and Liberal Unionism". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 158 (1). IOP Publishing: 012004. Bibcode:2009JPhCS.158a2004H. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/158/1/012004. S2CID 250693895.
^Trainer, Matthew (2008). "Lord Kelvin, Recipient of The John Fritz Medal in 1905". Physics in Perspective. 10: 212–223. doi:10.1007/s00016-007-0344-4. S2CID 124435108.
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, OM, GCVO, PC, FRS, FRSE (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer...
scientist LordKelvin first developed and proposed the scale. It was often called the "absolute Celsius" scale in the early 20th century. The kelvin was formally...
University of Glasgow are two pitch-based demonstrations by LordKelvin from the 19th century. Kelvin placed some bullets on top of a dish of pitch, and corks...
of an infinitely old universe. It was formulated in February 1862 by LordKelvin and expanded upon by Hermann von Helmholtz and William John Macquorn...
long time period. The hypothesis of heat death stems from the ideas of LordKelvin who, in the 1850s, took the theory of heat as mechanical energy loss...
The Kelvin water dropper, invented by Scottish scientist William Thomson (LordKelvin) in 1867, is a type of electrostatic generator. Kelvin referred to...
theory of the atom was a 19th-century attempt by William Thomson (later LordKelvin) to explain why the atoms recently discovered by chemists came in only...
entropy of a cooled ideal gas reach their minimum value, taken as zero kelvin. The fundamental particles of nature have minimum vibrational motion, retaining...
produce a wake pattern, first explained mathematically by LordKelvin and known today as the Kelvin wake pattern. This pattern consists of two wake lines...
statements being the statement by Rudolf Clausius (1854), the statement by LordKelvin (1851), and the statement in axiomatic thermodynamics by Constantin Carathéodory...
is named in honor of William Thomson, also known as LordKelvin. The original form of the Kelvin equation, published in 1871, is: p ( r 1 , r 2 ) = P...
was generalised in 1848 by LordKelvin. In March 1851, while grappling to come to terms with the work of Joule, LordKelvin started to speculate that there...
continuity equations much simpler). This wave is named after the discoverer, LordKelvin (1879). In a stratified ocean of mean depth H, whose height is perturbed...
SS LordKelvin was a cable-laying ship which served during the Second World War. Initially owned by the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, LordKelvin was...
example, the metre has the symbol m, but the kelvin has symbol K, because it is named after LordKelvin and the ampere with symbol A is named after André-Marie...
defined by LordKelvin in terms of a macroscopic relation between thermodynamic work and heat transfer as defined in thermodynamics, but the kelvin was redefined...
Thomson was ennobled as LordKelvin in appreciation of his many scientific accomplishments. In 1895 John Perry challenged Kelvin's figure on the basis of...
Besides the internationally agreed Kelvin scale, there is also a thermodynamic temperature scale, invented by LordKelvin, also with its numerical zero at...
effect is an extension of the Peltier–Seebeck model and is credited to LordKelvin. Joule heating, the heat that is generated whenever a current is passed...
unit of temperature, chosen in honour of LordKelvin, thus traces its origins to the river. The hydronym Kelvin is probably of Brittonic origin. It may...
based upon the professional relationship between William Thomson (later-LordKelvin) (1824–1907), Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University from...
introduced in the field of thermodynamics by William Thomson (LordKelvin) in 1852. LordKelvin deduced that a subset of the above-mentioned irreversible...