William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Was inducted to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin was a Scottish mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer.
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science · British physicist, engineer and mathematician (1824–1907) · physicist · astronomer · mathematician · university teacher · politician · writer · engineer · chemist · also William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Lord Kelvin, The Lord Kelvin, William Thomson, William (Lord Kelvin) Thomson, Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin
Born 26 June 1824 · Died 17 December 1907 · Q122701
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2011· 1 entry
1907· 6 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Died 1907-12-17.
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
“I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of sound speculation in dynamical science.”
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
“Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.”
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
“Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.”
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
“I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation”. I was greatly interested in your work with kites; but I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aëronautical Society.”
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
“I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
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1905· 2 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won John Fritz Medal (1905).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Albert Einstein published the so-called annus mirabilis papers, one of which explained the photoelectric effect based on Max Planck's discovery of energy quanta which was the foundation of quantum mechanics, another of w
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1904· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Became Chancellor of the University of Glasgow
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1903· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
That radioactive decay releases heat led to Kelvin's estimate being challenged, and Ernest Rutherford famously made the argument in a 1904 lecture attended by Kelvin that this provided the unknown energy source Kelvin ha
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1902· 2 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Awarded Order of Merit (1902).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Career landmark: Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (1902).
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1900· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Is presumably a confusion with his "Two clouds" lecture and which on the contrary pointed out areas that would subsequently see revolutions
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1898· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Kelvin predicted that only 400 years of oxygen supply remained on the planet, due to the rate of burning combustibles
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1897· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Thomson, now Lord Kelvin, ultimately settled on an estimate that Earth was 20–40 million years old
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1896· 2 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Refused an invitation to join the Aeronautical Society, writing, "I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear o
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
“I need not tell you that when I read the paper I was very much astonished and delighted. I can say no more now than to congratulate you warmly on the great discovery you have made.”
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1895· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Challenging Kelvin's assumption of low thermal conductivity inside Earth, and thus showing a much greater age, this had little immediate impact
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1894· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
“... it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established ... An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”
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1893· 2 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Thomson headed an international commission to decide on the design of the Niagara Falls power station
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Career landmark: member of the House of Lords (1893–1907).
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1892· 3 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won Helmholtz Medal (1892).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Became the first scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
In recognition of his achievements in thermodynamics, and of his opposition to Irish Home Rule, becoming Baron Kelvin, of Largs in the County of Ayr
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1890· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Career landmark: President of the Royal Society (1890–1895).
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1886· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Awarded honorary member of the Physics Association (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) (1886).
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1884· 3 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Awarded Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order (1884).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Kelvin led a master class on "Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light" at Johns Hopkins University
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Was the first scientist to formulate the hypothetical concept of dark matter; he then attempted to define and locate some "dark bodies" in the Milky Way
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1883· 3 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Awarded Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (1883).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won Copley Medal (1883).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
And served as its president from 1890 to 1895
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1879· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won Albert Medal (1879).
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1876· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won Matteucci Medal (1876).
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1873· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Awarded Poncelet Prize (1873).
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1871· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
When he was appointed to the Board of Enquiry into the sinking of HMS Captain
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1866· 2 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
By Queen Victoria, becoming Sir William Thomson
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Laid a new cable in two weeks, and then recovered and completed the 1865 cable
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1862· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Which uses the second law of thermodynamics to disprove the possibility of an infinitely old universe; this paradox was later extended by William Rankine
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1861· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won Keith Medal (1861).
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1859· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Thomson saw evidence of the relatively short habitable age of Earth as tending to contradict Darwin's gradualist explanation of slow natural selection bringing about biological diversity
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1856· 3 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won Royal Society Bakerian Medal (1856).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Won Royal Medal (1856).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
By Wildman Whitehouse, the electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company
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1851· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society (1851).
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1848· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Extended the Carnot–Clapeyron theory further through his dissatisfaction that the gas thermometer provided only an operational definition of temperature
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1846· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow
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1845· 4 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Awarded Smith's Prize (1845).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Studied at University of Cambridge (1841–1845).
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Gave the first mathematical development of Michael Faraday's idea that electric induction takes place through an intervening medium, or "dielectric", and not by some incomprehensible "action at a distance"
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Studied at Peterhouse (1841–1845).
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1841· 2 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Installed him, with extensive letters of introduction and ample accommodation, at Peterhouse, Cambridge
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Studied at University of Glasgow (1834–1841).
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1834· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Aged 10, he began studying at the University of Glasgow, not out of any precociousness; the university provided many of the facilities of an elementary school for able pupils, and this was a typical starting age
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1833· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Studied at Royal Belfast Academical Institution (1833).
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1832· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
His father was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Glasgow, and the family moved there in October 1833
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1824· 3 entries
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
Born 1824-06-26.
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
The year of Lord Kelvin's birth, used −267 as an estimate of the absolute zero temperature
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson was born on 26 June 1824 in Belfast.
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1817· 1 entry
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
And, of their children, four boys and two girls survived infancy
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