"If you can measure what you are talking about and express it in numbers, then you know something about this subject. But if you cannot quantify it, your knowledge is extremely limited and unsatisfactory. Maybe this is the initial stage, but this is not the level of genuine scientific knowledge ..."

W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin)

The scientist whose name is the absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, Lord Kelvin, was a versatile person whose scientific interests include thermodynamics (in particular, he owns two formulations of the second principle of thermodynamics), hydrodynamics, dynamic geology, electromagnetism, elasticity theory, mechanics and mathematics . The scientist's research on thermal conductivity, work on the theory of tides, the propagation of waves over the surface, and the theory of vortex motion are known. But he was not just a theoretical scientist. “The man of science is separated from the productive worker by a whole abyss, and science, instead of serving in the hands of the worker as a means to increase his own productive power, almost everywhere opposes himself to him." - said the scientist. His contribution to the development of practical applications of various branches of science is difficult to overestimate In the 1850s, a scientist who was interested in telegraphy was the main scientific consultant when laying the first telegraph cables across the Atlantic Ocean.He designed a number of precise electrometric instruments: a "cable" mirror galvanometer, quadrant and absolute electrometers, an undulator-marker for receiving telegraph signals with siphon ink supply, ampere scales used to calibrate electrical appliances, and much more, and also proposed the use of stranded wires made of copper wire. actions, tide gauge (a device for recording the water level in the sea or river). Among the many patents taken by this ingenious designer, there are those for purely practical devices (such as water taps). A truly talented person is talented in everything.

William Thomson (this is the real name of this famous scientist), was born exactly 190 years ago, on June 26, 1824, in Belfast (Northern Ireland) in the family of a mathematics teacher at the Royal Academic Institute of Belfast, the author of a number of textbooks that have gone through dozens of editions, James Thomson, whose ancestors were Irish farmers. In 1817 he married Margaret Gardner. Their marriage was large (four boys and two girls). The eldest son, James, and William were brought up in the father's house, and the younger boys were given to be raised by older sisters. It is not surprising that Thomson Sr. took care of the decent education of his sons. At first, he paid more attention to James, but it soon became clear that the poor health of his eldest son would not allow him to receive a good education, and his father focused on raising William.br />
When William was 7 years old, the family moved to Glasgow (Scotland), where his father received the chair of mathematics and a professorship. Glasgow later became the place of life and work of the famous physicist. Already at the age of eight, William began attending his father's lectures, and at the age of 10 he became a college student in Glasgow, where he studied with his older brother James. John Nichol, a well-known Scottish astronomer and popularizer of science, who worked at the university since 1839, played a big role in shaping the young man's scientific interests. He followed the advanced achievements of science and tried to acquaint his students with them. At the age of sixteen, William read Fourier's book The Analytical Theory of Heat, which, in essence, determined the program of his research for the rest of his life.

After graduating from college, Thomson went to study at St. Peter College, Cambridge, where he published several papers on the application of Fourier series to various branches of physics and in the excellent study "The uniform motion of heat in homogeneous solid and its connection with the mathematical theory of electricity" ("The Cambridge math. Journ.", 1842) drew important analogies between the phenomena of the propagation of heat and electric current and showed how the solution of questions from one of these areas can be applied to questions in another area. In another study, "The Linear Motion of Heat" (1842, ibid.), Thomson developed principles which he then fruitfully applied to many questions in dynamic geology, such as the cooling of the earth. In one of his early letters to his father, Thomson writes how he plans his time: get up at 5 in the morning and light the fire; read up to 8 hours 15 minutes; attend the daily lecture; read until 1 p.m.; do exercises until 4 pm; visit the church before 7 pm; read up to 8 hours 30 minutes; go to bed at 9 a.m. This schedule illustrates a lifelong desire to minimize wasted time. I must say that William Thomson was a comprehensively developed young man, he went in for sports, even was a member of the Cambridge rowing team and, together with his comrades, defeated Oxford students in the famous race, which has been held since 1829. Thomson was also well versed in music and literature. But he preferred science to all these hobbies, and here his interests were also diverse.

In 1845, after graduating from Cambridge, having received a diploma of the second rangler and the Smith Prize, William, on the advice of his father, went to Paris to train in the laboratory of the famous French experimental physicist Henri-Victor Regnault (1810-1878). At the same time, in the journal Joseph Liouville, Thomson published a number of articles on electrostatics, in which he outlined his method of electrical images, later called the "mirror image method", which made it possible to simply solve many of the most difficult problems of electrostatics.

While Thomson was studying at Cambridge, events were taking place in Glasgow that determined his future career. When Thomson was finishing his first year at Cambridge in 1841, William Meiklehem, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, fell seriously ill. It was clear that he would not be able to return to work. As 1842 passed, with no obvious candidate for a vacant seat in Glasgow, Thomson Sr. realized that his son William, who had just turned 18, might well compete for the seat. On September 11, 1846, 22-year-old Thomson was elected by secret ballot to the post of professor of natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow. He retained his post until 1899, not even tempted by the post of head of the Cavendish Chair at Cambridge, which was offered to him three times in the 1870s and 1880s. Thomson gave his first lecture as a professor at the University of Glasgow on November 4, 1846. In it, he gave an introductory overview of all branches of physics for students enrolled in a natural philosophy course. In a letter to Stokes, Thomson admitted that the first lecture was a failure. He wrote it down in full beforehand and was worried all the time that he was reading too fast. But that didn't stop them from using the same entry the following year, and every year thereafter for fifty years, with different insertions, corrections, and improvements. The students adored their famous professor, although his ability to instantly think, see connections and analogies, baffled many, especially when Thomson impromptu inserted such reasoning into lectures.

In 1847, at a meeting of the British Association of Naturalists in Oxford, Thomson met with James Joule. During the previous four years, Joule had declared at these annual meetings that heat was not, as was then believed, some substance (caloric) propagating from one body to another. Joule expressed the belief that heat is in fact the result of vibrations of the constituent atoms of matter. After studying how a gas compresses when cooled, Joule suggested that no substance could be cooled below 284 ° C (later, as we know, this figure was refined by Thomson). In addition, Joule demonstrated the equivalence of work and heat by conducting experiments to determine the equivalent amount of mechanical work needed to heat one pound of water by 1°F. He even claimed that the water temperature at the base of the falls was higher than at the top. Joule's speeches at meetings of the British Association were received with boredom and distrust. But everything changed at a meeting in Oxford in 1847, because Thomson was sitting in the hall. He was delighted with what Joel had to say, began asking many questions and provoked a heated debate. True, Thomson suggested that Joule might be wrong. In a letter to his brother after the meeting, Thomson wrote: "I am sending Joule's works, which will amaze you. I have had little time to go into them in detail. It seems to me that there are still many flaws in them now." But Joel was not mistaken, and Thomson, after much deliberation, agreed with him. Moreover, he was able to link Joule's ideas with Sadi Carnot's work on heat engines. At the same time, he managed to find a more general way to determine the absolute zero of temperature, which does not depend on a particular substance. That is why the fundamental base unit of temperature was later called the kelvin. In addition, Thomson realized that the law of conservation of energy is the great unifying principle of science, and introduced the concepts of "static" and "dynamic" energy, which we now respectively call kinetic and potential energy.

In 1848 Thomson introduced " absolute thermometric scale". He explained her name as follows: " This scale is characterized by complete independence from the physical properties of any particular substance."He notes that." infinite cold must correspond to a finite number of degrees below zero on an air thermometer", namely: point, " corresponding to the volume of air reduced to zero, which will be marked on the scale as -273 ° C".

Since 1849, Thomson's work on thermodynamics began, printed in the publications of the Royal Society in Edinburgh. In the first of these works, Thomson, drawing on Joule's research, indicates how to modify Carnot's principle, set out in the latter's Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance (1824), in order to the principle was consistent with modern data; this famous work contains one of the first formulations of the second law of thermodynamics.

Beginning in 1851, Thomson published a series of scientific articles under the general title "On the Dynamic Theory of Heat", in which he considered (independently of R. Clausius) the first and second laws of thermodynamics. At the same time, he again returns to the problem of absolute temperature, noting that " the temperatures of two bodies are proportional to the amount of heat taken and given away respectively by the material system in two places having these temperatures, when the system completes a complete cycle of ideal reversible processes and is protected from loss or addition of heat at any other temperature". In his work "On the dynamic theory of heat" a new point of view on heat was stated, according to which " heat is not a substance, but a dynamic form of a mechanical effect. Therefore "there must be some equivalence between mechanical work and heat". Thomson points out that this principle, " apparently, for the first time ... was openly proclaimed in the work of Y. Mayer “Remarks on the forces of inanimate nature". Further, he mentions the work of J. Joule, who studied the numerical ratio, “ linking heat and mechanical force". Thomson states that the whole theory of the driving force of heat is based on two propositions, of which the first goes back to Joule and is formulated as follows: In all cases where equal quantities of mechanical work are obtained in any way exclusively from heat, or are expended solely on obtaining thermal effects, equal quantities of heat are always lost or gained.". Thomson formulates the second proposition as follows: “If any machine is arranged in such a way that when it works in the opposite direction, all mechanical and physical processes in any part of its movement turn into opposite ones, then it produces exactly as much mechanical work as any thermodynamic system could produce due to a given amount of heat. machine with the same temperature heat and refrigerator sources". Thomson raises this position to S. Carnot and R. Clausius and substantiates it with the following axiom: “ It is impossible with the help of an inanimate material agent to obtain mechanical work from any mass of matter by cooling it below the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects.". To this formulation, which is called Thomson's formulation of the second law, Thomson makes the following note: If we did not recognize this axiom as valid at all temperatures, we would have to admit that it is possible to put an automatic machine into operation and obtain, by cooling the sea or the earth, mechanical work in any quantity, up to the exhaustion of all the heat of land and sea, or, in the end, all material world". The “automatic machine” described in this note came to be called perpetuum mobile of the 2nd kind. Proceeding from the open law of thermodynamics and applying it to the Universe as a whole, he came (1852) to the erroneous conclusion about the inevitability of the "thermal death of the Universe" (the hypothesis of the thermal death of the Universe). The illegitimacy of this approach and the fallacy of the hypothesis was proved by L. Boltzmann.

In the same year, at the age of 27, Thomson became a member of the Royal Society of London - the English Academy of Sciences. In 1852, Thomson, together with the English physicist James Joule, carried out a well-known study on the cooling of gases during expansion without doing work, which served as a transitional step from the theory of ideal gases to the theory of real gases. They found that when a gas passes adiabatically (without an influx of energy from outside) through a porous partition, its temperature decreases. This phenomenon is called the "Joule-Thomson effect". Around the same time, Thomson developed the thermodynamic theory of thermoelectric phenomena.

In 1852, the scientist married Margaret Crum, with whom he had been in love since childhood. He was happy, but happiness, unfortunately, did not last long. Already during the honeymoon, Margaret's health deteriorated sharply. The next 17 years of Thomson's life were overshadowed by constant worries about the health of his wife, and the scientist devoted almost all his free time to caring for her.

In addition to his work on thermodynamics, Thomson studied electromagnetic phenomena. So, in 1853, he published an article "On transient electric currents", laying the foundations for the theory of electromagnetic oscillations. Considering the change in time of the electric charge of a spherical body when it is connected by a thin conductor (wire) to the Earth, Thomson found that in this case damped oscillations arise with certain characteristics depending on the electric capacitance of the body, the resistance of the conductor and the electrodynamic capacitance. Subsequently, the formula reflecting the dependence of the period of free oscillations in a circuit without resistance on the indicated values ​​was called the "Thomson formula" (although he himself did not derive this formula).

Finally, in 1855, the scientist combined the two areas of his scientific interests and began to study thermoelectric processes. He developed the thermodynamic theory of thermoelectric phenomena. Many such phenomena were already known, some were discovered by Thomson himself. In 1856, he discovered the third thermoelectric effect - the Thomson effect (the first two are the occurrence of thermo-EMF and the release of Peltier heat), which consisted in the release of the so-called. "Thomson heat" when current flows through a conductor in the presence of a temperature gradient. The most surprising thing is that Thomson did not experimentally carry out this discovery, but predicted it based on his theory. And this at a time when scientists still did not even have more or less correct ideas about the nature of electric current! Of great importance in the formation of atomistic ideas was Thomson's calculation of the size of molecules based on measurements of the surface energy of a liquid film. In 1870, he established the dependence of the elasticity of saturated vapor on the shape of the liquid surface.

Thomson was closely associated with another Irish-born physicist, George Gabriel Stokes. They met in Cambridge and remained close friends for the rest of their lives, exchanging more than 650 letters. Much of their correspondence concerns research in mathematics and physics. Their minds complemented each other, and in some cases the thoughts were so united that neither could tell (nor cared about) who came up with an idea first. Perhaps the most famous example is the Stokes theorem from vector analysis, which allows one to transform integrals over a closed contour into integrals over a surface spanned by this contour, and vice versa. This theorem was actually stated in a letter from Thomson to Stokes, so it should have been called "Thomson's theorem".

In the fifties, Thomson also became interested in the question of transatlantic telegraphy; prompted by the failures of the first practical pioneers, Thomson theoretically investigates the question of the propagation of electrical impulses along cables and comes to conclusions of the greatest practical importance, which made it possible to carry out telegraphy across the ocean. Along the way, Thomson deduces the conditions for the existence of an oscillatory electric discharge (1853), which were again found later by Kirchhoff (1864) and formed the basis of the entire theory of electrical oscillations. The cable-laying expedition introduces Thomson to the needs of the sea and leads to the improvement of the lot and compass (1872-1876). He created and patented a new compass that was more stable than those in existence at the time and eliminated the deviation associated with the steel hulls of ships. At first, the Admiralty was skeptical about the invention. According to the conclusion of one of the commissions, "the compass is too delicate and probably very fragile." In response, Thomson threw the compass into the room where the commission met and the compass was not damaged. The naval authorities were finally convinced of the strength of the new compass, and in 1888 it was adopted by the entire fleet. Thomson also invented a mechanical tide predictor and created a new echo sounder that could quickly determine the depth under a ship and, more importantly, do it while the ship was moving.

No less famous were the views of William Thomson on the thermal history of the Earth. His interest in this subject was awakened in 1844, when he was still an undergraduate student at Cambridge. Later, he repeatedly returned to it, which eventually brought him into conflict with other famous scientists, including John Tyndall, Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin. This can be seen in Darwin's description of Thomson as a "vile ghost" and in Huxley's preaching zeal for promoting evolutionary theory as an alternative to religious beliefs. Thomson was a Christian, but he did not care about defending the literal interpretation of the details of Creation, for example, he was happy to talk about the fact that a meteorite brought life to Earth. However, Thomson always defended and promoted good science throughout his life. He believed that geology and evolutionary biology were underdeveloped compared to physics based on rigorous mathematics. In fact, many physicists of that time did not consider geology and biology to be sciences at all. To estimate the age of the Earth, William Thomson used the methods of his favorite Fourier. He calculated how long it took for the molten globe to cool down to its current temperature. In 1862, William Thomson estimated the age of the Earth at 100 million years, but in 1899 he revised the calculations and reduced the figure to 20-40 million years. Biologists and geologists needed a hundred times the figure. The discrepancy between theories was resolved only at the beginning of the 20th century, when Ernest Rutherford realized that the radioactivity of rocks provides an internal mechanism for heating the Earth, slowing down cooling. This process leads to an increase in the age of the Earth compared to what Thomson predicted. Modern estimates give a value of at least 4600 million years. The discovery in 1903 of the law relating the release of thermal energy to radioactive decay did not prompt him to change his own estimates of the age of the Sun. But since radioactivity was discovered when Thomson crossed the 70-year mark, he can be excused for not taking into account its role in the research, which he began at the age of 20.

W. Thomson also possessed a great pedagogical talent and perfectly combined theoretical training with practical training. His lectures on physics were accompanied by demonstrations, in which Thomson widely attracted students, which stimulated the interest of the audience. At the University of Glasgow, W. Thomson created the first physical laboratory in Great Britain, in which a lot of original scientific research was done, and which played a big role in the development of physical science. Initially, the laboratory huddled in the former lecture rooms, an old abandoned wine cellar and part of the old professorial house. In 1870, the university moved to a new magnificent building, which provided spacious premises for the laboratory. Thomson's pulpit and house were the first in Britain to be lit up with electricity. The first telephone line in the country operated between the university and White's workshops, which made physical instruments. The workshops grew into a multi-story factory, which essentially became a branch of the laboratory.

It is said that one day Lord Kelvin had to cancel his lecture and wrote on the blackboard "Professor Thomson will not meet his classes today". The students decided to play a trick on the professor and erased the letter "c" in the word "classes". The next day, when he saw the inscription, Thomson was not at a loss, erasing another letter in the same word, and silently left. (Play on words: classes - classes, students; lasses - mistresses, asses - donkeys.)

On June 17, 1870, Margaret died. After that, the scientist decided to change his life, devote more time to rest, he even bought a schooner, on which he took walks with friends and colleagues. In the summer of 1873, Thomson led another cable-laying expedition. Due to cable damage, the crew was forced to make a 16-day stop in Madeira, where the scientist became friends with Charles Blandy's family, especially Fanny, one of his daughters, whom he married the following summer.

In addition to scientific, teaching and engineering activities, William Thomson performed many honorary duties. Three times (1873-1878, 1886-1890, 1895-1907) he was elected President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, from 1890 to 1895 he headed the Royal Society of London. In 1884 he traveled to the United States, where he gave a series of lectures. Thomson's extraordinary merits in pure and applied science were fully appreciated by his contemporaries. In 1866, William received a title of nobility, and in 1892, Queen Victoria, for his scientific merits, granted him a peerage with the title of "Baron Kelvin" (after the name of the Kelvin River flowing in Glasgow). Unfortunately, William became not only the first, but also the last Baron Kelvin - his second marriage, like the first, turned out to be childless. The fiftieth anniversary of his scientific work in 1896 was celebrated by physicists all over the world. Representatives of various countries took part in the celebration of Thomson, including the Russian physicist N. A. Umov; in 1896 Thomson was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1899, Kelvin left the chair in Glasgow, although he did not stop doing science.

At the very end of the 19th century, on April 27, 1900, Lord Kelvin gave a famous lecture at the Royal Institution on the crisis of the dynamical theory of light and heat, entitled "Nineteenth century clouds over the dynamical theory of heat and light." In it, he said: “The beauty and clarity of the dynamic theory, according to which heat and light are forms of motion, are currently obscured by two clouds. The first of them ... is the question: how can the Earth move through an elastic medium, which is essentially a luminous ether? The second is the Maxwell-Boltzmann doctrine of the distribution of energy." Lord Kelvin concluded the discussion of the first question with the words: "I'm afraid that for the time being the first cloud we must consider as very dark." Most of the lecture was devoted to the difficulties associated with the assumption of a uniform distribution of energy over degrees of freedom. This issue was widely discussed in those years in connection with insurmountable contradictions in the question of the spectral distribution of the radiation of a completely black body. Summing up the fruitless search for a way to overcome the contradictions, Lord Kelvin rather pessimistically concludes that the simplest way is simply to ignore the existence of this cloud. The insight of the venerable physicist was amazing: he definitely groped for two painful points of contemporary science. A few months later, in the last days of the 19th century, M. Planck published his solution to the problem of black body radiation, introducing the concept of the quantum nature of the radiation and absorption of light, and five years later, in 1905, A. Einstein published the work "K electrodynamics of moving bodies", in which he formulated the private theory of relativity and gave a negative answer to the question of the existence of the ether. Thus, behind the two clouds in the sky of physics, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, the fundamental foundations of today's physics, were hidden.

The last years of Lord Kelvin's life were the time when many fundamentally new things appeared in physics. The era of classical physics, of which he was one of the brightest figures, was drawing to a close. The quantum and relativistic era was already not far away, and he was taking steps towards it: he was keenly interested in X-rays and radioactivity, he performed calculations to determine the size of molecules, put forward a hypothesis about the structure of atoms and actively supported the research of J. J. Thomson in this direction . However, it was not without incidents. Back in 1896, he was skeptical about the discovery by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen of special rays that allow you to see the internal structure of the human body, calling this news exaggerated, like a well-planned hoax and requiring careful verification. And a year before he said: "Aircraft heavier than air are impossible." In 1897, Kelvin noted that radio had no future.

Lord William Kelvin died on December 17, 1907 at the age of 83 in Largs (Scotland), near Glasgow. The merits to science of this king of physics of the Victorian era are undeniably great, and his ashes rightfully rest in Westminster Abbey next to the ashes of Isaac Newton. He left behind 25 books, 660 scientific articles and 70 inventions. In "Biogr.-Litter. Handwörterbuch Poggendorffa" (1896) provides a list of about 250 articles (except books) belonging to Thomson.

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

(26.VI. 1824 - 17.XII. 1907)

William Thomson, the future Lord Kelvin, was born in Belfast (Ireland) in the family of an engineering professor. When the boy was 7 years old, his father received a chair in mathematics at the University of Glasgow (Scotland), and moved there with his family. Already at the age of eight, William began attending his father's lectures, and at the age of 10 he became a student. After graduating from Glasgow, the 17-year-old boy enters the University of Cambridge. At this time, his first scientific article on trigonometric series is published.
In 1845, after graduating from the university, Thomson, on the advice of his father, went to Paris to study in the laboratory of the famous French experimental physicist Henri-Victor Regnault (1810-1878). Here Thomson developed a method for solving electrostatic problems ("the method of electrical images"). A year later, the 22-year-old scientist returned to Glasgow, becoming a professor and head of the department of physics at the university.
In 1848 Thomson introduced the "absolute thermometric scale". He explained its name as follows: "This scale is characterized by complete independence from the physical properties of any particular substance." He notes that "infinite cold must correspond to a finite number of degrees below zero on the air thermometer", namely: the point "corresponding to the volume of air reduced to zero, which will be marked on the scale as -273 ° C".
Beginning in 1851, Thomson published a series of scientific articles under the general title "On the Dynamic Theory of Heat", in which he considered the first and second laws of thermodynamics. At the same time, he once again returns to the problem of absolute temperature, noting that "the temperatures of two bodies are proportional to the amount of heat, respectively, taken and given away by the material system in two places that have these temperatures, when the system completes a full cycle of ideal reversible processes and is protected from loss or addition heat at any other temperature.
This conclusion allowed Thomson to express the efficiency of a heat engine (Carnot cycle) using the temperatures of the heater and refrigerator.
In the same year, at the age of 27, Thomson became a member of the Royal Society of London - the English Academy of Sciences. And two years later, together with the English physicist James Joule (1818-1889), he found that when a gas passes adiabatically (without an influx of energy from outside) through a porous partition, its temperature decreases. This phenomenon is called the "Joule-Thomson effect". Around the same time, Thomson developed the thermodynamic theory of thermoelectric phenomena.
In addition to thermodynamics, Thomson studied electromagnetic phenomena. So, in 1853 he published an article "On transient electric currents." Considering the change in time of the electric charge of a spherical body when it is connected by a thin conductor (wire) to the Earth, Thomson found that in this case damped oscillations arise with certain characteristics depending on the electric capacitance of the body, the resistance of the conductor and the electrodynamic capacitance. Subsequently, the formula reflecting the dependence of the period of free oscillations in a circuit without resistance on the indicated values ​​was called the "Thomson formula" (although he himself did not derive this formula).
Thomson was the first scientist to study electrical oscillations, and it was not by chance that he was invited to become the chief scientific consultant in laying the first transatlantic cables designed to create a stable telegraph connection between the two continents. For his great contribution to this work, he was elevated to the nobility in 1865, and in 1892, for outstanding scientific services, he was awarded the title of Lord Kelvin (after the name of the river flowing near the university, where he worked for many years).
From 1890 to 1895 Thomson held the honorary office of President of the Royal Society of London.
Sir William Thomson died at the age of 83 at Largs, near Glasgow. He left behind 25 books, 660 scientific articles and 70 inventions.

Thomson William Lord Kelvin- a famous British physicist and mechanic, famous for his theoretical and practical work in the field of thermodynamics, electrodynamics and mechanics, was born June 26, 1824 in Belfast, Ireland. Thanks to his father, the famous mathematician James Thomson, whose textbooks were reprinted for several decades, the future scientist received a good education, which actually predetermined his future life path.

Together with his brother James Thomson, William receives a good primary education at Glasgow College, and then at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, after which the twenty-two-year-old Thomson takes the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Glasgow.

While still a student, William became interested in research in the field of the propagation of electricity, and also began to study issues related to electrostatics. A in 1842 also publishes a number of scientific papers related to the results of these studies.

In 1855 Together with his students from the University of Glasgow, Thomson conducts numerous practical research on thermoelectricity. By the way, partly thanks to the scientist, students throughout England began to be attracted to practical scientific work.

Around the same time, Thomson was conducting theoretical studies on the propagation of electrical signals through wires. It was partly thanks to him and the results of his work that it became possible to create transatlantic (across the ocean) telegraph communication lines. The scientist himself is directly involved in laying some of them. Thomson also conducts research on oscillatory electric charges, which were later continued by his follower Gustav Robert Kirchhoff and formed the basis of the theory of electrical oscillations.

In 1853 William Thomson formulates the dependence of the period of electrical oscillations of the circuit on capacitance and inductance, later named after him (Thomson's formula). And three years later in 1856 the scientist discovers the effect of heat release in a conductor when an electric current flows through it - the third thermoelectric effect or the Thomson effect.

William Thomson personally designed a number of precise electrical measuring instruments: a cable galvanometer, an electrometer, and a siphon-marker (a device for receiving telegraph signals). By the way, it was Thomson who was one of the first to propose using a stranded cable instead of a solid metal cable.

The great scientist and inventor died December 17, 1907 in Scotland. For his services to science during his lifetime, he was awarded the title of baron and was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The unit of temperature measurement, the kelvin, was named after him (Thomson received the title of Lord Kelvin from the name of the river that flowed near his native university in Glasgow).

William Thomson, Baron Kelvin(English William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin; June 26, 1824, Belfast, Ireland - December 17, 1907, Largs, Scotland) - British physicist and mechanic. Known for his work in the field of thermodynamics, mechanics, electrodynamics.

Biography

William Thomson was born on June 26, 1824 in Belfast. Thomson's ancestors were Irish farmers; his father James Thomson, a famous mathematician, was a teacher at the Belfast Academical Institution from 1814, then professor of mathematics at Glasgow from 1832; known for textbooks in mathematics, with dozens of editions. William Thomson and his older brother James went to college in Glasgow and then to St. Peter's in Cambridge, where William completed his science course in 1845.

In 1846, the twenty-two-year-old Thomson took the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Glasgow.

In 1856, the scientist was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London.

From 1880 to 1882 President of the London Society of Physicists. Thomson's extraordinary merits in pure and applied science were fully appreciated by his contemporaries.

In 1866, Thomson was knighted, in 1892 Queen Victoria granted him a peerage with the title of "Baron Kelvin" along the Kelvin River, which flows past the University of Glasgow and flows into the River Clyde.

Scientific activity

While still a student, Thomson published a number of papers on the application of Fourier series to physics, and in the study "The uniform motion of heat in homogeneous solid and its connection with the mathematical theory of electricity" ("The Cambridge math. Journ.", 1842), he drew important analogies between the phenomena of the propagation of heat and electric current, showing how the solution of the questions of one of these areas can be applied to the questions of the other. In another study, "The Linear Motion of Heat" (1842, ibid.), Thomson developed principles which he then fruitfully applied to many questions in dynamic geology, such as the cooling of the earth.

In 1845, while in Paris, Thomson began publishing a series of articles on electrostatics in Joseph Liouville's journal, in which he outlined his method of electrical imaging, which made it possible to simply solve many of the most difficult problems of electrostatics.

In 1849, Thomson began work on thermodynamics, which was published in the publications of the Royal Society in Edinburgh. In the first of these works, Thomson, drawing on Joule's research, indicated how to modify Carnot's principle, set out in the latter's "Rflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres dvelopper cette puissance" (1824), so that the principle would be consistent with up-to-date data; this work contains one of the first formulations of the second law of thermodynamics. In 1852, Thomson gave another formulation of it, namely the doctrine of the dissipation of energy. In the same year, Thomson, together with Joule, conducted a study of the cooling of gases during expansion without doing work, which served as a transitional step from the theory of ideal gases to the theory of real gases.

Work begun in 1855 on thermoelectricity ("Electrodynamic Qualities of Metals") caused intensified experimental work; students from the University of Glasgow took part in the work, which marked the beginning of the first practical work of students in the UK, as well as the beginning of a laboratory in physics in Glasgow.

In the 1950s, Thomson became interested in the question of transatlantic telegraphy; Prompted by the failures of the first practical pioneers, Thomson theoretically investigated the question of the propagation of electrical impulses along cables and came to conclusions of the greatest practical importance, which made it possible to carry out telegraphy across the ocean. Along the way, Thomson deduced the conditions for the existence of an oscillatory electric discharge (1853), which were later found again by Kirchhoff (1864) and formed the basis of the entire theory of electrical oscillations. On an expedition to lay a cable, Thomson became acquainted with the needs of maritime affairs, which led to the improvement of the lot and the compass (1872-1876).

100 famous scientists Sklyarenko Valentina Markovna

THOMSON WILLIAM, BARON CALVIN (1824 - 1907)

THOMSON WILLIAM, BARON CALVIN

(1824 - 1907)

June 26, 1824 in the Irish city of Belfast was born William Thomson - one of the greatest physicists in the history of science, a man who was awarded the title of Lord for his scientific achievements (which, I must say, did not happen very often). His ancestors were ordinary Irish farmers. True, James Thomson, William's father, graduated from the University of Glasgow and was a fairly well-known mathematician who taught at the Royal Academic Institute of Belfast. In 1817 he married Margaret Gardner. Their marriage was large (four boys and two girls). The eldest son, James, and William were brought up in the father's house, and the younger boys were given to be raised by older sisters. It is not surprising that Thomson Sr. took care of the decent education of his sons. At first, he paid more attention to James, but it soon became clear that the eldest son's poor health would not allow him to receive a good education, and his father focused on raising William.

In 1832 Thomson Sr. was appointed professor of mathematics at Glasgow and the family left Belfast. In 1834, William entered the University of Glasgow, which also taught high school disciplines for capable children. John Nichol, a well-known Scottish astronomer and popularizer of science, who worked at the university since 1839, played a big role in shaping the young man's scientific interests. He followed the advanced achievements of science and tried to acquaint his students with them. One of these innovations was the method of Fourier series, the application of which in physical research Thomson, while still a student, devoted several works. In particular, he applied the method of Fourier series to the study of the laws of heat propagation in various media and showed an analogy between the propagation of heat and electric current.

In 1841, his father placed William in Cambridge. The young man studied successfully, in 1845 he received a diploma of the second rangler and won the Smith Prize. I must say that William Thomson was a comprehensively developed young man, he went in for sports, even was a member of the Cambridge rowing team and, together with his comrades, defeated Oxford students in the famous race, which has been held since 1829. Thomson was also well versed in music and literature. But he preferred science to all these hobbies, and here his interests were also diverse.

In 1845, William Thomson made one of the first attempts to mathematically interpret Faraday's ideas about short-range action. This year he received a special scholarship, thanks to which he was able to leave for Paris, where he worked for some time in the laboratory of the famous physicist Henri Victor Ragno. In France, William mainly dealt with electrostatics and published a number of papers, in which, in particular, he outlined the electrical method he had developed for obtaining an image. This method subsequently became a very useful tool in many electrostatic studies.

In 1846, Thomson received an invitation to head the department of theoretical physics in Glasgow. Even then, the 23-year-old scientist acquired a certain authority and fame in scientific circles. This is evidenced at least by his participation in the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1847, during which William heard a report by Joule on the theories of heat transfer. This topic interested him very much and he seriously took up thermodynamics. Already in 1848, Thomson proposed his famous thermodynamic temperature scale (the Kelvin scale). It differs from other temperature scales in that absolute zero temperature is taken as the reference point. Thus, this scale does not depend on the properties of the thermometric substance (the substance used in the temperature-measuring device).

In 1851, William, almost simultaneously with and independently of Rudolf Clausius, formulated the second law of thermodynamics. In Thomson's formulation, this law sounded like this: "In nature, a process is impossible, the only result of which would be mechanical work performed by cooling the heat reservoir." From here, the English scientist made far-reaching conclusions: as soon as mechanical energy can completely turn into thermal energy, and a complete reverse transformation is impossible, in the end, all energy will turn into thermal energy, and therefore, mechanical movements will stop. This conclusion became known as "the idea of ​​the heat death of the universe". It should be said that now the hypothesis of the heat death of the Universe is considered erroneous, but in any case it greatly contributed to the development of thermodynamics.

William Thomson also continued to investigate electrical phenomena. In the same 1851, he made another discovery: he discovered that when ferromagnets are magnetized, their electrical resistance changes. This phenomenon is called the Thomson effect in ferromagnets (we will talk about the thermoelectric Thomson effect a little later). With his work, William attracted the attention of an ever wider circle of colleagues. 1851 was marked by another significant event - Thomson was elected a member of the Royal Society of London.

In 1852, the scientist married Margaret Crum, with whom he had been in love since childhood. He was happy, but happiness, unfortunately, did not last long. Already during the honeymoon, Margaret's health deteriorated sharply. The next 17 years of Thomson's life were overshadowed by constant worries about the health of his wife, and the scientist devoted almost all his free time to caring for her.

In 1852-1856, Thomson actively collaborated with Joule, although the scientists communicated mainly through correspondence. In 1853-1854, they jointly conducted a series of experiments and discovered the effect of changing the temperature of a gas during its adiabatic expansion. The Joule-Thomson effect can be positive (the gas cools) or negative (the gas heats up). In addition to scientific interest, this phenomenon also has practical applications: it is used to obtain very low temperatures.

Finally, in 1855, the scientist combined the two areas of his scientific interests and began to study thermoelectric processes. He developed the thermodynamic theory of thermoelectric phenomena. Many such phenomena were already known, some were discovered by Thomson himself. One of them is called the thermoelectric Thomson effect. It consists in the following: if there is a temperature difference along the conductor through which the electric current flows, then in addition to the heating process explained by the Joule-Lenz law, additional absorption or heat release occurs (depending on the direction of the current). The most surprising thing is that Thomson did not experimentally carry out this discovery, but predicted it based on his theory. And this at a time when scientists still did not even have more or less correct ideas about the nature of electric current! Thomson also attracted students to research on thermoelectric phenomena. Thanks to this initiative, the first educational and scientific laboratory was created at the University of Glasgow.

The English scientist was very interested in the practical application of the achievements of contemporary science. In 1854, he received an offer to take part in the project of laying a transatlantic telegraph cable. Thomson devoted a lot of time and energy to this work, since 1856 he was a member of the board of directors of the Atlantic Telegraph company, participated, mainly during the holidays, in cable-laying expeditions. But Thomson provided the greatest contribution to the implementation of the project with his scientific research. He studied the patterns of propagation of electrical impulses through wires, electric currents in an oscillatory circuit, developed the theory of electromagnetic oscillations and, in particular, derived one of the basic formulas of electrical and radio engineering, named after him (Thomson's formula determines the dependence of the oscillation period of the circuit on the capacitance of its capacitor and the inductance of the coil ).

Of course, during the expeditions, such a versatile and enthusiastic person as Thomson could not help but become interested in navigation issues. He also found application for his inventive and scientific talents in this area: he improved the designs of the compass and lot, conducted research on the theory of waves and the theory of tides, etc. In general, the inventive activity of William Thomson deserves special attention. He designed and improved a number of physical instruments: a mirror galvanometer, square and absolute electrometers, and was the author of several applied inventions. For example, he patented an undulator with a siphon ink supply, a type of telegraph key, and even a water tap of his own design.

For participation in the laying of the transatlantic telegraph cable on November 10, 1866, William Thomson and other project leaders were awarded the titles of Lords. This activity took a lot of effort and time, and for a long time the scientist had to limit himself to only those studies that could be carried out without being distracted from it. But this work was very fascinated by Thomson, besides, he passionately fell in love with the sea. From 1869, William Thomson took part in the laying of the French Atlantic cable.

On June 17, 1870, Margaret died. After that, the scientist decided to change his life, devote more time to rest, he even bought a schooner, on which he took walks with friends and colleagues. In the summer of 1873, Thomson led another cable-laying expedition. Due to cable damage, the crew was forced to make a 16-day stop in Madeira, where the scientist became friends with Charles Blandy's family, especially Fanny, one of his daughters, whom he married the following summer.

In addition to scientific, teaching and engineering activities, William Thomson performed many honorary duties. Three times (1873-1878, 1886-1890, 1895-1907) he was elected President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, from 1890 to 1895 he headed the Royal Society of London. In 1884 he traveled to the United States, where he gave a series of lectures. In 1892, for scientific merits, the scientist received the title of the first Baron Kelvin (this name was taken from the name of the river flowing through the territory of the University of Glasgow). Unfortunately, William became not only the first, but also the last Baron Kelvin - his second marriage, like the first, turned out to be childless. In 1899, Kelvin left the chair in Glasgow, although he did not stop doing science. The following year he gave a lecture on the crisis in the dynamical theory of light and heat. Later, the scientist was interested in new discoveries: X-rays, radioactivity, etc. Lord William Kelvin died on December 17, 1907. The scientist was buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the grave of Isaac Newton.

This text is an introductory piece. From the book Imperial Russia author Anisimov Evgeny Viktorovich

Flood of 1824 The reign of Alexander I did not end well for St. Petersburg and the country. Two terrible disasters, one natural, the other social, hit the city. And in the center of them was the Bronze Horseman, under which the genius of the city seems to live. November 7, 1824

From the book of 100 great geniuses author Balandin Rudolf Konstantinovich

BYRON (1788–1824) George Noel Gordon Byron came from a distinguished, though impoverished, family. He spent his childhood in the city of Aberdeen (Scotland). At the age of ten, he inherited the title of lord and estate from his great-uncle. After the closed aristocratic school, where he began

From the book World History. Volume 4. Recent History by Yeager Oscar

1. Spain and Portugal since 1824 Spain since 1824 The senseless system that had been established in Spain after the invasion soon had to be somewhat changed. The king himself changed direction, not because his vindictiveness and cruelty were satisfied or because he realized that unnecessary

From the book French Wolf - Queen of England. Isabel author Weir Alison

1824 Murimout; Foedera; CCR; Baker; S.C. Only that government has the right to exist, which has

From the book Hidden Tibet. History of independence and occupation author Kuzmin Sergey Lvovich

1824 "Jingji ribao": rapid development ...

author Shishkova Maria Pavlovna

Southern exile (1820-1824) Caucasus, Crimea, Chisinau, Kamenka, Odessa In May 1820 Pushkin was expelled from St. Petersburg. After a short stay in Yekaterinoslavl (Dnepropetrovsk), he and the Raevsky family went to the Caucasian Mineral Waters. Then Pushkin moved to the Crimea

From the book Pushkin-Music-Era author Shishkova Maria Pavlovna

Mikhailovskoye (1824-1826) July 31, 1824 Pushkin leaves Odessa. “From opera, from dark lodges. And, thank God, from the nobles. He left for the shadow of the Trigorsky forests. To a distant northern county” (a variant of Onegin's Travels). In the first months of his new exile, Pushkin wrote to Vyazemsky: "I

From the book World History in Sayings and Quotes author Dushenko Konstantin Vasilievich