Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron

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Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron (1824–1907). Pioneer of thermodynamics and one of the greatest of classical physicists. Educated in Belfast, Glasgow, and Cambridge, he was in 1846 chosen professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow. He remained there for 50 years, and on retirement signed on as a research student. He said that one word characterized his work, ‘failure’. He was not serious: in fact, he had done fundamental research on electromagnetism and light, on telegraphy, and on heat, where he had come up with the idea of an absolute zero of temperature—the scale based on this is named after him. He was happy to turn his talents to practical use, over telegraph cables, liquefaction of gases, and the construction of instruments. The leading physical scientist in Britain, he was made a peer in 1892.

David Knight

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