Kelvin (of Largs), William Thomson, 1st Baron 1824-1907
Scottish physicist and mathematician

Kelvin was born in Belfast and brought to Glasgow in 1832 when his father was appointed Professor of Mathematics there. He entered Glasgow University at the age of 10, went to Cambridge at 16, and after graduating was elected a Fellow of Peterhouse. He went to Paris to study under Henri Victor Regnault, and at the age of 22 was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy (1846-99), and turned his mind to physics. In a career of astonishing versatility, he brilliantly combined pure and applied science. In an early paper (1842) he solved important problems in electrostatics. He proposed the absolute, or Kelvin, temperature scale in 1848. Simultaneously with Rudolf Clausius he established the second law of thermodynamics.

He investigated geomagnetism, and hydrodynamics (particularly wave-motion and vortex-motion). He was chief consultant on the laying of the first submarine Atlantic cable (1857-58), and became wealthy by patenting a mirror galvanometer for speeding telegraphic transmission. He improved ships' compasses, and invented innumerable electrical instruments (his house in Glasgow was the first to be lit by electric light); these instruments were manufactured by his own company, Kelvin & White. He was created 1st Baron Kelvin of Largs in 1892. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, beside Sir Isaac Newton.

Bibliography: C W Smith and M N Wise, Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (1989); Silvanus P Thompson, The Life of Lord Kelvin (1977); Andrew Gray, Lord Kelvin: An Account of his Scientific Life and Work (1908).