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

Lord Kelvin (1824 - 1907)William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) was born June 26, 1824 in Belfast, Ireland,and was part of a heavy(p) 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 first papers published in 1840.These papers contained an argument defending the work 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 called " 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 subsequently him. In 1851 he published the paper, "On the Dynamica l Theory ofHeat", and in the same year was elected to the Royal Society. This workcontained his ideas and version of the act law of thermodynamics as well asJames Joules idea of the mechanical equivalent of heat. This idea claimed thatheat and motion were combined, which now is interpreted as second nature. At the time,heat was thought to have been a fluid of some kind.Kelvin also maintained an interest in the days 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 collaboration withHermann von Helmholtz, he calculated and published in 1853 a value of 50 millionyears. He also had an interest in the age of the ball, 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 curing occurs (such as the beginning of the earth). He also calculated 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 conundrum of transmitting electricalsignals over long distances. In 1866, Kelvin succeeded in laying the firstsuccessful transatlantic cable.Kelvin invented the mirror galvanometer which he procure in 1858 as a long