This Week's Great Day

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18644, 22 December 1928, Page 17 (Supplement)

This Week's Great Day

Memorable Events in

By

Charles Cornway

DECEMBER 17: DEATH OF LORD KELVIN. TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO, on December 17. 1907, William Thomson. Lord Kelvin, one of the most illustrious of the world’s great scientists, died at the age of eighty-three. lie was born on June 26, 1824. at Belfast, in Ireland, and his father was Tam%; Thomson, who was at that time a teacher of mathematics at the Royal Academical Institution, but who, eight years later, removed with his familv to Scotland for the purpose of taking up his duties as a professor at Glasgow University. William Thomson received his early education from his father, but at the age of ten he became a student at the University, where he remained for the next seven years, during which period he gained innumerable prizes, beating competitors twice his age in every examination for which he entered. At the age of seventeen he. was entered at Cambridge University, where he repeated his Glasgow triumphs, and four years later he secured his degree as second wrangler and was elected a Fellow of Peterhouse College, after which he spent a year in Paris studying experimental science, which was not possible at that time in Great Britain. He was only twenty-two years of age when he was offered, and accepted, the chair of natural philosophy at Glasgow University, an appointment which he held for the next fifty-three years. He speedily became recognised as the greatest physicist of the day, and for half a century he was a source of inspiration to the scientific world, while his suggestions were responsible for a considerable amount of the advanced research work performed by numerous other leading scientists. Ilis teaching at Glasgow opened a new scientific era, and for the purpose of his own personal research work he established the first working laboratory of physical science §ver set up in a British University. Ilis most important work was in connection with thermodynamics, the branch of science which deals with the relations between heat and work, but to the world he is best known for his truly remarkable achievements in the electrical field. In 1854 he turned his attention to the possibilities of laying a trans-Atlantic submarine telegraph cable, and it was mainly owing to his genius that the difficulties surrounding the task were overcome and telegraphic communication was finally established between Great Britain and America in 1866. The many delays in the accomplishment of the work were mostly caused by the failure of the engineers in charge to follow the suggestions which Thomson made, and it was not until he was placed in supreme control of the operations that success was achieved. He was the inventor of a large number of invaluable contrivances which were universally adopted in navigation, including an improved mariner’s compass, a deep sea sounding machine and a tide analyser and predicter, and he also published over 300 papers bearing upon every branch of physical science. A knighthood was conferred upon him in 1866 in recognition of his work in connection with the Atlantic cable, and he was raised to the peerage in 1892, while among the other numerous honours bestowed upon him. both at Home and abroad, was the presidency of the Royal Society and the Chancellorship of Glasgow University. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where he rests by the side of Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and other great scientists. [Copyrighted.]