Lord Kelvin

Lord Kelvin

• Lord Kelvin

Lord Kelvin

• Lord Kelvin

• Who was “Lord Kelvin”?

Lord Kelvin

• Lord Kelvin

• Who was “Lord Kelvin”?

• What was “Lord Kelvin’s” NAME??

Lord Kelvin

• Lord Kelvin

• Who was “Lord Kelvin”?

• What was “Lord Kelvin’s” NAME??

• Hints

• His first name was NOT “Lord”!!

Lord Kelvin

• Lord Kelvin

• Who was “Lord Kelvin”?

• What was “Lord Kelvin’s” NAME??

• Hints

• His first name was NOT “Lord”!!

• His last name was NOT “Kelvin”!!

Lord Kelvin

• Lord Kelvin

• Who was “Lord Kelvin”?

• What was “Lord Kelvin’s” NAME??

• Hints

• His first name was NOT “Lord”!!

• His last name was NOT “Kelvin”!!

• “Lord Kelvin” was his

Lord Kelvin

• Lord Kelvin

• Who was “Lord Kelvin”?

• What was “Lord Kelvin’s” NAME??

• Hints

• His first name was NOT “Lord”!!

• His last name was NOT “Kelvin”!!

• “Lord Kelvin” was his

• British Title

• NOT his NAME!!

Born June 26th 1824, Belfast, Ireland

• Born June 26th 1824, Belfast, Ireland

• Graduated AT AGE 10 from

• The University of Glasgow!!

• His father was a professor

• Earned a BA from Cambridge

• Much later, became chair of “natural philosophy” (PHYSICS) at Glasgow.

• Died of the flu in 1907, in Scotland.

• Got title “Baron Kelvin of Largs” in 1892.

• Knighted by Queen Victoria for work on engines.

• “Kelvin” was taken from a creek that ran through the Cambridge University campus.

• Buried next to Sir Isaac Newton.

Published 661 scientific papers!

• Published 661 scientific papers!

• Held 70 patents!

• Held the record for the

• most academic letters behind his name! (?)

• Engineering Contributions:

• Supervised the laying of the

• first transatlantic cable.

• Basic Science Contributions:

• Helped Pierre & Marie Curie with the
• discovery of radium.
• Was the first to make a detailed
• analysis of ocean tides.

Kelvin also had many achievements in Optics!

• Kelvin also had many achievements in Optics!

• First introduced the word chirality into science.
• First to associate an object’s
• color with it’s temperature.
• His ideas are still used today in
• color film & digital cameras.

• Calculated the age of the earth from its rate of cooling & decided that

• Evolution & Geologic time were impossible!

• This led to a public argument with Charles Darwin over evolution & the earth’s age.

• More on this some other time!

“When you can measure what you are speaking

• “When you can measure what you are speaking
• about and express it in numbers, you know
• something about it; but when you cannot
• measure, when you cannot express it in
• numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and
• unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning
• of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your
• thoughts, advanced to the stage of science.”