Lord Kelvin
Lord Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM GCVO PC PRS FRSEwas an Irish and Scottish mathematical physicist and engineer who was born in Belfast in 1824. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form. He worked closely with mathematics professor Hugh Blackburn in his work. He also had a career...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth26 June 1824
CountryIreland
If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery.
Vortices of pure energy can exist and, if my theories are right, can compose the bodily form of an intelligent species.
All of science can be divided into physics and stamp-collecting.
I have not had a moment's peace or happiness in respect to electromagnetic theory since November 28, 1846. All this time I have been liable to fits of ether dipsomania, kept away at intervals only by rigorous abstention from thought on the subject.
[Of the ether] it is no greater mystery at all events than the shoemakers' wax.
Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.
[Referring to Fourier's mathematical theory of the conduction of heat] ... Fourier's great mathematical poem ...
Although mechanical energy is indestructible, there is a universal tendency to its dissipation, which produces throughout the system a gradual augmentation and diffusion of heat, cessation of motion and exhaustion of the potential energy of the material Universe
I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of all sound speculation in dynamical science. The only contribution of dynamics to theoretical biology is absolute negation of automatic commencement or automatic maintenance of life.
Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.
There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application...
Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but ' vector ' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.
At what time does the dissipation of energy begin?