Physicist and engineer — William Thomson, from 1892 Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), was a British physicist and engineer, born in Belfast and for over half a century a professor at Glasgow. A child prodigy, he entered university at the age of ten and became one of the leading figures of nineteenth-century thermodynamics. In 1848 he introduced the absolute temperature scale, now known as the Kelvin scale, founded on a lower limit, absolute zero, independent of the thermometric substance. He made a decisive contribution to formulating the second law of thermodynamics and, with Joule, discovered the Joule-Thomson effect, which underlies gas refrigeration. He was also a great engineer: he successfully led the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, inventing sensitive measuring instruments and galvanometers, which brought him fame and wealth.
Trivia
A firm believer in the limits of technology, he declared heavier-than-air flying machines impossible and considered X-rays a hoax; he was buried in Westminster Abbey next to Isaac Newton.
Theories and contributions
- Absolute temperature scale — Thermodynamic scale with its origin at absolute zero: .
- Second law of thermodynamics — It is impossible for a process to have as its sole result the complete conversion of heat into work (Kelvin statement).
- Joule-Thomson effect — Temperature change of a real gas expanding at constant enthalpy through a throttle.
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Linked atoms
6 linked atoms.