Who was William Kelvin?
Physicist, especially in the field of thermodynamics.
Christened William Thomson.
Date and Place of Birth:
26th June 1824, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Family Background:
Son of James Thomson, Professor of Mathematics
and engineering in Belfast and at the University of Glasgow. Fourth
child of seven.
Education:
William and his elder brother James were taught
at home by their father. University of Glasgow. Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Chronology/Biography of Lord Kelvin:
1833: Family moved
to Glasgow as his father started a teaching post there at the university.
1840: Spent the
summer in Germany and the Netherlands.
1845: Elected a
Fellow of St Peter's College, Cambridge. He began the first mathematical
development of Faraday's idea that electric
induction takes place through an intervening medium, or "dielectric",
and not by some incomprehensible "action at a distance".
It was in some part in response to this work that Faraday
undertook his own research that led to the discovery of the Faraday
effect, which held that light and magnetic/electric phenomena were
related.
1846: Elected to
the Chair of Natural Philosophy a Glasgow University.
1847: Elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
1851: Began work
on what would become the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Elected a
Fellow o the Royal Society.
1857: (August) Sailed
on board the cable-laying ship HMS Agamemnon. He had worked on the
technical aspects of cable laying for telegraph communications and
also the theory of passing a signal through such submarine cables.
The cable broke after only a few yards.
1865: Sailed on
the cable laying ship SS Great Eastern but the voyage again was
overtaken by technical problems. The cable was lost after over a
thousand miles had been laid.
1866: (10th November)
Knighted after being part of a team which completed a successful
trans-atlantic cable laying.
1870: Now addicted
to seafaring he bought a 126 ton schooner called the "Lalla
Rookh" and used it as a place for entertaining.
1880's: Worked on
a navigational compass to help take away magnetic deviations.
1884: Kelvin delivered
a group of lectures at Johns Hopkins University in the United States
of America in which he attempted model a physical property for the
ether, a medium that most scientists of the time believed in and
which he hoped would support electromagnetic waves.
1892: Raised to
the Peerage as Baron Kelvin, of Largs.
1893: Kelvin headed
an international commission to oversee the design of the Niagara
Falls power station.
1896: Made a Knight
Grand Cross of the Victorian Order.
1902: Becomes one
o the first people to receive the Order of Merit.
Written Works:
- 1867:
"The Treatise on Natural Philosophy"
Marriage:
1. September 1852 to Margaret Crum of Thornliebank.
(died 17th June 1870)
2. 24 June 1874 to Fanny Blandy from Madeira.
Places of Interest:
Date and Place of Death:
17th December 1907, Netherhall, Largs, Ayrshire,
Scotland.
Age at Death:
83.
Site of Grave:
Central aisle of the Nave, Westminster Abbey,
London next to Isaac Newton.
Westminster Abbey, London
(© Anthony Blagg)
