Lord Kelvin (1824 - 1907) :: essays research papers

Lord Kelvin (1824 - 1907)William Thomson ( ulterior Lord Kelvin) was born June 26, 1824 in Belfast, Ireland,and was part of a large family whose mother died when he was six. His fathertaught Kelvin and his brothers mathematics to a level beyond that of universitycourses of the time.Kelvin was somewhat of a genius, and had his archetypical papers publish in 1840.These papers contained an argument defending the process of Fourier (Fouriertransforms), which at the time was being heavily criticized by Britishscientists. He proved Fouriers theories to be right. In 1839 Kelvin wrote anessay which he c each(prenominal)ed " An Essay on the Figure of the Earth." He used this essayas a source and inspiration for ideas all his life and won an award from theUniversity of Glasgow in Scotland. Kelvin remained at the University for therest of his working life.Kelvin first defined the absolute temperature scale in 1847, which was laternamed after him. In 1851 he published the paper, &quo tOn the Dynamical Theory ofHeat", and in the same year was elected to the Royal Society. This workcontained his ideas and interpreting of the second law of thermodynamics as well asJames Joules idea of the mechanical equivalent of heat. This idea claimed thatheat and motion were combined, which without delay is taken as second nature. At the time,heat was thought to have been a fluid of some kind.Kelvin also maintained an interest in the age of the sun and calculated valuesfor it. He assumed that the sun produced its radiant energy from thegravitational potential of matter falling into the sun. In collaborationism withHermann von Helmholtz, he calculated and published in 1853 a value of 50 millionyears. He also had an interest in the age of the earth, and he calculated thatthe earth was a maximum of 400 million years old. These calculations were basedon the rate of cooling of a globe of matter after first solidification occurs (such as the beginning of the earth). He also ca lculated that molecular motionstops at -273 degrees Celsius. He called this temperature absolute zero.Kelvin started work in 1854 on the project of laying transatlantic cables. Hisidea was that electrical current flow was similar to that of heat flow, and byapplying ideas on heat flow, helped in the problem of transmitting electricalsignals over long distances. In 1866, Kelvin succeeded in laying the firstsuccessful transatlantic cable.Kelvin invented the mirror galvanometer which he patented in 1858 as a long