Journal articles: 'William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)'

1

Trainer, Matthew. "The patents of William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)." World Patent Information 26, no. 4 (December 2004): 311–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wpi.2004.05.003.

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Rowlinson, J. S. "Dr Thomas Carver and Lord Kelvin." Notes and Records of the Royal Society 60, no. 2 (April 12, 2006): 161–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2006.0139.

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Thomas Carver was secretary and assistant to William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, from 1890 to 1894 and maintained close links with him until Kelvin's death in 1907. In the twentieth century Carver became an independent engineer and inventor whose patents were mainly for improvements to textile machinery. These improvements were some of the first successful attempts to introduce electrical devices into what had been traditionally a purely mechanical industry. His patents include what seems to be the earliest proposal to use electro-acoustical echo-sounding for measuring the depth of the sea.

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Aplin, K. L., and R. G. Harrison. "Lord Kelvin's atmospheric electricity measurements." History of Geo- and Space Sciences 4, no. 2 (September 3, 2013): 83–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/hgss-4-83-2013.

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Abstract. Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) made important contributions to the study of atmospheric electricity during a brief but productive period from 1859–1861. By 1859 Kelvin had recognised the need for "incessant recording" of atmospheric electrical parameters, and responded by inventing both the water dropper equaliser for measuring the atmospheric potential gradient (PG), and photographic data logging. The water dropper equaliser was widely adopted internationally and is still in use today. Following theoretical considerations of electric field distortion by local topography, Kelvin developed a portable electrometer, using it to investigate the PG on the Scottish island of Arran. During these environmental measurements, Kelvin may have unwittingly detected atmospheric PG changes during solar activity in August/September 1859 associated with the "Carrington event", which is interesting in the context of his later statements that solar magnetic influence on the Earth was impossible. Kelvin's atmospheric electricity work presents an early representative study in quantitative environmental physics, through the application of mathematical principles to an environmental problem, the design and construction of bespoke instrumentation for real world measurements and recognising the limitations of the original theoretical view revealed by experimental work.

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Yvard, Jean-Michel. "Géologie, théologie et inquiétudes eschatologiques : William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) et les débats suscités par la thermodynamique à l’époque victorienne." Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, no. 71 Printemps (June 18, 2010): 237–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/cve.2860.

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Wise, M. Norton. "Mediating Machines." Science in Context 2, no. 1 (1988): 77–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0269889700000508.

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The ArgumentThe societal context within which science is pursued generally acts as a productive force in the generation of knowledge. To analyze this action it is helpful to consider particular modes of mediation through which societal concerns are projected into the very local and esoteric concerns of a particular domain of research. One such mode of mediation occurs through material systems. Here I treat two such systems – the steam engine and the electric telegraph – in the natural philosophy of William Thomson (Lord Kelvin).The steam engine illustrates conceptual mediation. It simultaneously instantiates “labor value” in political economy and “work” in engineering mechanics, thereby identifying the two concepts in the region of their common reference. The partial identification carries with it a structural analogy between a network of concepts from political economy and a similar network in natural philosophy, providing a potent heuristic for the reformulation and further development of dynamics.The electric telegraph illustrates methodological mediation. It projects the interests of engineering and industry into the interests of electromagnetic theory and vice versa, thereby establishing, in Thomson's view, a Baconian unity of truth and utility. As the common reference of theory and practice, the telegraph locates the truth of theoretical knowledge in its utility and the utility of practical knowledge in its truth.These particular cases of conceptual and methodological mediation indicate how the local practices, concepts, and interests of a research specialty, or subculture, draw on and are adapted to those of the larger culture within which they develop. Thus the analysis of mediation leads to an ecological model of the social construction of scientific knowledge.

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Falconer, Isobel. "Vortices and atoms in the Maxwellian era." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 377, no. 2158 (September 30, 2019): 20180451. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0451.

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The mathematical study of vortices began with Herman von Helmholtz's pioneering study in 1858. It was pursued vigorously over the next two decades, largely by British physicists and mathematicians, in two contexts: Maxwell's vortex analogy for the electromagnetic field and William Thomson's (Lord Kelvin) theory that atoms were vortex rings in an all-pervading ether. By the time of Maxwell's death in 1879, the basic laws of vortices in a perfect fluid in three-dimensional Euclidean space had been established, as had their importance to physics. Early vortex studies were embedded in a web of issues spanning the fields we now know as ‘mathematics’ and ‘physics’—fields which had not yet become institutionally distinct disciplines but overlapped. This paper investigates the conceptual issues with ideas of force, matter, and space, that underlay mechanics and led to vortex models being an attractive proposition for British physicists, and how these issues played out in the mathematics of vortices, paying particular attention to problems around continuity. It concludes that while they made valuable contributions to hydrodynamics and the nascent field of topology, the British ultimately failed in their more physical objectives. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Topological and geometrical aspects of mass and vortex dynamics’.

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Crawford, Barbara E. "William P.L. Thomson, Lord Henry Sinclair's 1492 Rental of Orkney." Northern Scotland 18 (First Serie, no. 1 (May 1998): 118–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/nor.1998.0014.

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Craik, Alex D. D. "ThePopular lectures and addressesof William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs (1824–1907)." BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics 27, no. 1 (March 2012): 50–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2012.619085.

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Jacovelli, Paul B., Ronald C. Norris, Chester E. Canada, and Otto H. Zinke. "The Thermocouple Revisited: The Thomson Effect." Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics 44, no. 4 (October 25, 2019): 333–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2018-0062.

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Abstract Measurements of Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) coefficients are made in an evacuated region on a silver sample with a novel transducer in temperature intervals {T_{A}}\pm 20\hspace{0.1667em}\text{K}, where the {T_{A}} are very carefully controlled ambient temperatures. This is the first systematic examination of Thomson coefficients in these temperature intervals. The Thomson coefficients when plotted against T, the temperature of measurement, are found to be discontinuous precisely at {T_{A}}. When the Thomson coefficients are multiplied by a transformation involving T and {T_{A}}, a linear curve in T results. Examinations here of measurements of Thomson coefficients produced by others show multiple values at T in some cases and odd behavior in other cases. Multiplying the results of others by the transformation discovered here almost always produces linear curves. The conclusions are the following. (1) Thomson’s explicit assumption that the Thomson effect involves no energy exchange with surroundings was wrong. (2) Any non-equilibrium thermodynamic approach to deriving the Thomson effect must take into account the energy exchange with the surroundings and consequently must be made in three dimensions. (3) From the work here and that of others, the energy exchange with the environment is probably mostly thermal radiation.

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10

Holmes, Andrew R. "Professor James Thomson Sr. and Lord Kelvin: Religion, Science, and Liberal Unionism in Ulster and Scotland." Journal of British Studies 50, no. 1 (January 2011): 100–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/656673.

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11

Jones, Derry W. "Physics Letters: the Stokes–Thomson effect The Correspondence between Sir George Gabriel Stokes and Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs: Vols. 1 & 2, edited by D.B. Wilson." Contemporary Physics 53, no. 3 (May 2012): 247–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2012.661783.

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12

Butler, Howard W. "Tracing the Second Law." Mechanical Engineering 129, no. 07 (July 1, 2007): 38–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.2007-jul-5.

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This article reviews the evolution in the field of thermodynamics. In the 19th century, James Joule, an English physicist, discovered the equivalence of heat and work, and the First Law of Thermodynamics was firmly established. The Second Law developed in phases over some 125 years. It is one of the most abstract laws of physical science and is the bane of students and others who try to understand its complexity. The first phase in the evolution of the Second Law is older than Joule's work and is due to Sadi Carnot. Carnot published his results in a book, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, in 1824. The second phase in the evolution of the Second Law took place in 1849, when William Thomson studied Carnot's work. The third phase of the evolution of the Second Law was carried out by a German professor of mathematical physics, Rudolf Clausius, who became aware of the work of Carnot, Joule, and Kelvin in 1850. A fourth phase in the development of the Second Law was carried out by Lars Onsager in 1931. The fifth phase in the evolution of the Second Law was developed by Ilya Prigogine in 1945. The Second Law is a statement that the entropy content of a system may be increased or decreased by entropy exchanges with the environment, but may only be increased as irreversibilities cause entropy creation.

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13

Ranford, Paul. "Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Bart (1819–1903): his impact on science and scientists." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 378, no. 2174 (June 8, 2020): 20190524. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2019.0524.

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Lucasian Professor Sir George Gabriel Stokes was appointed joint-Secretary of the Royal Society in 1854, a post he held for the unprecedented period of 31 years, relinquishing the role when he succeeded T.H. Huxley as President in 1885. An eminent scientist of the Victorian era, Stokes explained fluorescence (he also coined the word) and his hydrodynamical formulae (the ‘Navier–Stokes equations’) remain ubiquitous today in the physics of any phenomenon involving fluid flows, from pipelines to glaciers to large-scale atmospheric perturbations. He also made seminal advances in optics and mathematics, and formulae that bear his name remain widely used today. The historiography however appears to understate Stokes's significant impact on science as unacknowledged collaborator on a wide range of scientific developments. His scientific peers regarded him as a mentor, advisor, designer of crucial experiments and, as editor of the Royal Society's scientific journals, arbiter of the standards of excellence in scientific communication to be attained before publication would be considered. Three brief case studies on Stokes's correspondence with Lord Kelvin, Sir William Crookes and the chemist Arthur Smithells exemplify how his impact was conveyed through the work of other scientists. This paper also begins consideration of why the character and worldview of Stokes led him to eschew personal reputation and profit for the sake of science and the Royal Society, and of how the development of the discipline of history of science has impacted on historiography relating to Stokes and others. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Stokes at 200 (Part 1)’.

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14

SEGALA, MARCO. "DAVID B. WILSON (ed.), The correspondence between Sir George Gabriel Stokes and Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2 voll., 1990, lvi + 783 pp. ISBN 0-521-32831-4." Nuncius 6, no. 2 (1991): 446–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/182539191x01514.

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15

REID, CHRIS A. M., KINDI SMITH, and MAX BEATSON. "Revision of the genus Lamprima Latreille, 1804 (Coleoptera: Lucanidae)." Zootaxa 4446, no. 2 (July 17, 2018): 151. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4446.2.1.

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The genus Lamprima Latreille, 1804 (Coleoptera: Lucanidae: Lampriminae: Lamprimini), is revised. Five species are recognised: one in New Guinea (L. adolphinae (Gestro, 1875)), two on isolated western Pacific islands (L. aenea Fabricius, 1792: Norfolk Island; L. insularis W.J. Macleay, 1885: Lord Howe Island), one in northeastern New South Wales (L. imberbis Carter, 1926) and a common widespread species in eastern and southern Australia, L. aurata Latreille, 1817. Lamprima aurata varies considerably morphologically and many of the different forms encompassed by this variation have been described as species. Our study of morphology does not support this classification. Therefore, Lamprima aurata is designated a senior synonym of the following 24 names: L. cuprea Latreille, 1817; L. latreillii W.S. MacLeay, 1819 (new synonym); L. pygmaea W.S. MacLeay, 1819 (new synonym); L. fulgida Boisduval, 1835; L. micardi Reiche, 1841 (new synonym); L. rutilans Erichson, 1842; L. splendens Erichson, 1842; L. viridis Erichson, 1842; L. nigricollis Hope in Westwood, 1845 (new synonym); L. purpurascens Hope in Westwood, 1845 (new synonym); L. sumptuosa Hope in Westwood, 1845 (new synonym); L. tasmaniae Hope in Westwood, 1845 (new synonym); L. varians Burmeister, 1847 (new synonym); L. cultridens Burmeister, 1847 (new synonym); L. amplicollis Thomson, 1862 (new synonym); L. krefftii W.J. MacLeay, 1871 (new synonym); L. violacea W.J. Macleay, 1885 (new synonym); L. mandibularis W.J. Macleay, 1885 (new synonym); L. sericea W..J Macleay, 1885 (new synonym); L.nigripennis W.J. Macleay, 1885 (new synonym); L. minima W.J. Macleay, 1885 (new synonym); L. mariae Lea, 1910; L. coerulea Boileau, 1913 (new synonym); L. insularis Boileau, 1913 (new synonym). Lamprima adolphinae is a senior synonym of L. bohni (Darge & Séguy, 1953) (new synonym). Lamprima schreibersi Hope in Westwood, 1845, is an unnecessary nomen novum for L. aenea redescribed by Schreibers in 1802 from the same material as Fabricius, and therefore an objective synonym of L. aenea. Lamprima puncticollis Dejean, 1833, L. coerulea Hope in Westwood, 1845, and L. insularis Hope in Westwood, 1845, are nomina nuda, the last two names first made available by Boileau in 1913. The five Lamprima species are redescribed and recommendations made for their conservation. Type specimens of the species of Lamprima described by William Sharpe MacLeay and William John Macleay are illustrated for the first time. Lectotypes are designated for Lamprima insularis, L. latreillii, L. latreillii sericea, and L. mandibularis.

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16

Smith, Crosbie. "David B. Wilson (ed.). The Correspondence Between Sir George Gabriel Stokes and Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. Volume 1: 1846–1869; Volume 2: 1870–1901. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. lvi + ix + 783. ISBN 0-521-32831-4. £125.00, $195.00." British Journal for the History of Science 25, no. 2 (June 1992): 278–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007087400028958.

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17

Bagnoli, Franco. "Impossible interview with William Thomson - Lord Kelvin." Il Colle di Galileo, September 24, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.36253/cdg-12065.

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18

"Book reviews: Energy and Empire: a biographical study of Lord Kelvin." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 45, no. 1 (January 31, 1991): 122–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.1991.0010.

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Crosbie Smith & M. Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: a biographical study of Lord Kelvin . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. xxvi + 866, £60.00. ISBN 0-521-26173-2. In his obituary notice of Lord Kelvin, Joseph Larmor stated that Kelvin’s most important achievement was in the science of energy. He added that Kelvin’s work in this area had both established the industrial units of mechanical power and changed our conceptions of the material universe. These and many other aspects of the life and work of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs (1824-1907) are explored in this long and long-awaited biography. It has been at least 15 years in the writing, mainly because the authors have explored thoroughly the large archives of Kelvin papers in the Cambridge and Glasgow University Libraries as well as many smaller ones that shed light on his life and work. The wait has been well worthwhile.

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19

Tort, A. C., and F. Nogarol. "Revendo o debate sobre a idade da Terra." Revista Brasileira de Ensino de Física 35, no. 1 (March 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s1806-11172013000100026.

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A determinação da idade da Terra desperta até hoje discussões calorosas envolvendo diversos grupos sociais da sociedade moderna. Nesse artigo revemos alguns aspectos da história da determinação da idade da Terra na Era Vitoriana por sua importância e repercussão que se faz sentir mesmo nos dias atuais. Revisamos o cálculo de Helmholtz para determinar a idade do Sol, que é parte essencial da questão, e a solução detalhada apresentada por William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) para a solução do problema sobre a idade da Terra. A natureza claramente interdisciplinar da questão faz com que esta possa ser discutida de vários modos nos cursos universitários e de Ensino Médio.

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20

"Essay reviews: Maxwell's early career." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 45, no. 2 (July 31, 1991): 266–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.1991.0025.

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P.M. Harman, The scientific letters and papers of James Clerk Maxwell. Volume 1. 1846-1862 . Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xxvii + 748, £125.00. ISBN 0-521-25625-9 James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was arguably the most important British physicist in the latter half of the last century; a period in which there was some stiff competition from, for example, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and G.G. Stokes. With Darwin and Faraday he is among the men of science of the 19th century most widely admired by modern scientists. The reasons for this are not hard to find. His work had a lasting impact on physics and he pursued the subject both experimentally and mathematically in ways very similar to the methods of modern science: especially in the mathematical representation of physical quantities. Maxwell has been the subject of much scholarly study in recent years, but no scholarly biography of him has appeared or, so far as I am aware, is in progress. Furthermore, his immediate followers, the Maxwellians, have also been studied extensively. The lack of biography and concentration on followers might be taken to be a little curious except for the fact that a surprisingly small quantity of manuscript material has survived, for someone of his eminence. One of the reasons for this is obvious. His house, Glenlair, was destroyed by fire and it seems likely that much of his archive was consumed in the flames. However, the manuscript writings of any individual fall into two groups, those that are kept by the writer and those that are sent as letters to friends and colleagues. Here the fate of Maxwell’s manuscripts becomes more problematic. Of course those letters he wrote to his father and wife would most likely have been destroyed in the fire. But many of his letters to, for example, Stokes and Thomson, which should be in their archives, have simply disappeared, leaving no trace. Furthermore, much of his incoming correspondence has not survived, presumably because it too was destroyed in the fire.

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21

Ribeiro, Daniel. "William Thomson, Barão Kelvin." Revista de Ciência Elementar 3, no. 4 (December 30, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.24927/rce2015.247.

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22

"Book Reviews: The miller of Sneinton." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 48, no. 2 (July 31, 1994): 321–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.1994.0035.

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D.M. Cannell, George Green, Mathematician & Physicist 1793-1841 . Athlone Press, 1993. Pp. xxvi + 265, £35 (hdbk). ISBN-0-485-11433X. Most mathematicians will have used, or at least know of, Green’s Theorem and Green’s functions, but they are probably unaware of the unusual background of their eponymous creator. Green also made pioneering contributions in electricity (where he introduced the term ‘potential’), magnetism, hydrodynamics, elasticity, sound and light. Indeed, the intellectual profundity of his work, albeit encompassed in a mere ten publications, was recognized on the 200th anniversary of his birth, by the dedication of a plaque in Westminster Abbey where his name will be found amongst the greatest British men of science - Isaac Newton, John Frederick Herschel, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, George Gabriel Stokes, Lord Rayleigh, Lord Rutherford and J.J. Thomson. All of these had their work recognized during their own lifetime; in marked contrast, George Green, on his death, earned only a modest paragraph in a local newspaper as his sole obituary, and a grave neglected and forgotten for nearly 100 years. There are no portraits or photographs of him, no diaries or working papers, and little in the way of correspondence. Mary Cannell’s book, which is written to interest the lay reader as much as the scientific specialist, provides the background to Green’s unusual life and work.

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Journal articles on the topic 'William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)'

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