The mathematician and physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (1824-1907) was one of Britain's most influential scientists, famous for his work on the first and second laws of thermodynamics and for devising the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature. Silvanus P. Thompson (1851-1916) began this biography with the co-operation of Kelvin in 1906, but the project was interrupted by Kelvin's death the following year. Thompson, himself a respected physics lecturer and scientific writer, decided that a more comprehensive biography would be needed and spent several years reading through Kelvin's papers in order to complete these two volumes, published in 1910. Volume 1 covers Kelvin's life to 1871, including his student days, his election (aged 22) as professor in Glasgow, his ground-breaking theoretical research on thermodynamics, his applied work on telegraphs including the Atlantic cable, and his involvement in a geological controversy about the age of the earth.
- ISBN10 1345297416
- ISBN13 9781345297416
- Publish Date 24 October 2015 (first published 17 August 2010)
- Publish Status Unknown
- Imprint Arkose Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 632
- Language English