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William Thomson. William Thomson, also known as Lord Kelvin was an eminent physicist, mathematician, engineer and inventor. He is best known for his contributions to physics in the development of the second law of thermodynamics, the electromagnetic theory of light and the absolute temperature scale, which is measured in kelvins in his honor.
Jun 26, 2014 · Summary. William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow at a very young age. He made important contributions to many areas of Physics including electricity, magnetism and thermodynamics. His work on the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable made his fortune. View fifteen larger pictures. Biography.
Tom Thomson, the brilliant, pioneering Canadian artist for whom the City of Owen Sound’s Art Gallery is named, was born near Claremont, Ontario, northeast of Toronto on August 5, 1877, the sixth of ten children born to John Thomson and Margaret Matheson.
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William Thomson, Baron Kelvin (born June 26, 1824, Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland [now in Northern Ireland]—died December 17, 1907, Netherhall, near Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland) Scottish engineer, mathematician, and physicist who profoundly influenced the scientific thought of his generation.
Thomson, who was knighted and raised to the peerage in recognition of his work in engineering and physics, was foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped lay the foundations of modern physics. His contributions to science included a major role in the development of the second law of thermodynamics; the absolute temperature scale (measured in kelvins); the dynamical theory of heat; the mathematical analysis of electricity and magnetism, including the basic ideas for the electromagnetic theory of light; the geophysical determination of the age of the Earth; and fundamental work in hydrodynamics. His theoretical work on submarine telegraphy and his inventions for use on submarine cables aided Britain in capturing a preeminent place in world communication during the 19th century.
The style and character of Thomson’s scientific and engineering work reflected his active personality. While a student at the University of Cambridge, he was awarded silver sculls for winning the university championship in racing single-seater rowing shells. He was an inveterate traveler all of his life, spending much time on the Continent and making several trips to the United States. In later life he commuted between homes in London and Glasgow. Thomson risked his life several times during the laying of the first transatlantic cable.
Thomson’s worldview was based in part on the belief that all phenomena that caused force—such as electricity, magnetism, and heat—were the result of invisible material in motion. This belief placed him in the forefront of those scientists who opposed the view that forces were produced by imponderable fluids. By the end of the century, however, Thomson, having persisted in his belief, found himself in opposition to the positivistic outlook that proved to be a prelude to 20th-century quantum mechanics and relativity. Consistency of worldview eventually placed him counter to the mainstream of science.
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William Thomson was the fourth child in a family of seven. His mother died when he was six years old. His father, James Thomson, who was a textbook writer, taught mathematics, first in Belfast and later as a professor at the University of Glasgow; he taught his sons the most recent mathematics, much of which had not yet become a part of the British university curriculum. An unusually close relationship between a dominant father and a submissive son served to develop William’s extraordinary mind.
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William, age 10, and his brother James, age 11, matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1834. There William was introduced to the advanced and controversial thinking of Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier when one of Thomson’s professors loaned him Fourier’s pathbreaking book The Analytical Theory of Heat, which applied abstract mathematical techniques to the study of heat flow through any solid object. Thomson’s first two published articles, which appeared when he was 16 and 17 years old, were a defense of Fourier’s work, which was then under attack by British scientists. Thomson was the first to promote the idea that Fourier’s mathematics, although applied solely to the flow of heat, could be used in the study of other forms of energy—whether fluids in motion or electricity flowing through a wire.
Thomson won many university awards at Glasgow, and at the age of 15 he won a gold medal for “An Essay on the Figure of the Earth,” in which he exhibited exceptional mathematical ability. That essay, highly original in its analysis, served as a source of scientific ideas for Thomson throughout his life. He last consulted the essay just a few months before he died at the age of 83.
Thomson entered Cambridge in 1841 and took a B.A. degree four years later with high honours. In 1845 he was given a copy of George Green’s An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism. That work and Fourier’s book were the components from which Thomson shaped his worldview and that helped him create his pioneering synthesis of the mathematical relationship between electricity and heat. After finishing at Cambridge, Thomson went to Paris, where he worked in the laboratory of the physicist and chemist Henri-Victor Regnault to gain practical experimental competence to supplement his theoretical education.
Scottish-Irish physicist William Thomson, better known as Lord Kelvin, was one of the most eminent scientists of the 19th century and is best known today for inventing the international system of absolute temperature that bears his name.
Tom Thomson was the most influential and enduringly popular Canadian artist of the early 20th century. An intense, wry and gentle artist with a canny sensibility, he was an early inspiration for what became the Group of Seven. He was one of the first painters to give acute visual form to the Canadian landscape.
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The life and death of Tom Thomson (1877–1917) are shrouded in mystery, but his legacy as a modern painter of the Canadian wilderness endures.
