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Kelvin

Note on William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin.

A Manglish Man

Thomson calculated a limit to the age of the Earth based on physical principles which he had helped to formalise regarding the conservation and dissipation of energy. At the time his mathematical skills were unmatched in either geological or evolutional communities. This gave his argument a burdensome weight for opponents and revered gravitas for allies.

William Thomson, along with his brother James, had been educated in advanced mathematical techniques from childhood thanks to his father. While in single digits, the brothers attended their father’s lecturers in mathematics at the University of Glasgow. James would go on to become an apprentice engineer while William attended Cambridge to furth develop his formal skills. William excelled in his studies and published as an undergraduate on active mathematical topics of the day.

After graduation (1840s) William Thomson soon became a prominent researcher in Natural Philosophy by applying mathematics to physical problems, rather than tackling purely formal problems. His work on the development of Thermodynamics brought powerful quantitative rigor to many qualitative insights (cf. his formalisation of Faraday’s electromagnetic intuitions). This was a critical advance in the context of Victorian industrialisation and Thomson quickly gathered prestige for his contributions to Science and Industry over his career including a knighthood and (unprecedented) lordship.

By the time Thomson turned his attention to the age of the Earth (1862), he and the principles of Thermodynamics were authoritative. Thomson calculated a timespan for the Earth entirely independent of geological Deep Time. This ignored the intricacies of the stratigraphic record, and the disputes of geologists, but provide an envelope of years into which the depths of rock should fit.

Thomson was not a supporter of Natural Selection, though publicly remained silent on much of the detail.

Bringing together available tools to solve problems:

  • Contingency of tools to hand: theories, mathematics, contemporaries.

  • Agency in problem selection: Kelvin's and contemporaries interests

  • Emergence of time: other tasks and events

Contingency

Kelvin's greatest scientific breakthroughs came in combining the conceptual pieces, e.g. showing the equivalence of Faraday's descriptive explanations with the contemporary French mathematical formalism; and, using the analogous reasoning of electric fields with the flow of heat.

How Kelvin came by the opportunities to break contemporary deadlocks (e.g. Faraday and the French) or develop little known insights (e.g. Carnot's theory of engines) involved some dumb luck.

Agency

Kelvin was intrigued by problems of the day, often leaping across topics: mathematics (defending criticsm of Fourier), Physics (searching for mechanical explanantions of Heat then electromagnetism),Engineering (designing and deploying the trans-atlantic cable) and Navigation (design and manufacture of compass).

Colleagues admired his intellectual energy and breadth of interests however contemporaries and historians note the speed with which he moved onto new topics when he considered the crux of an issue completed - cf Maxwell's assumption of Kelvin's proofs in electromagnetics.

His choice of focus defined his career, even up to the end when he continued anachronistic debates over the nature of physical explanations, i.e. the non-mechanistic mathematical fromulations of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.

Kelvin was also was quite canny when it came to picking fights, making use of his "bulldog" Tait.

Emergence

Unforseen breakthroughs when working on a different or wider project:

  • the mirror galvanometer: developed to improve sensitivitiy of telegram receiver for long distance telegraphy.

  • the magnetic wet compass: developed to improve navigation for iron-hulled boats.