Kelvin - More Than Just a Unit of Heat

Wednesday, 5 December 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

Sir William Thomson, soon to be Lord Kelvin

This afternoon I attended a lecture by Professor William Thomson--SIR William Thomson. He is now 64-years-old. Last time I saw Thomson was 32 years ago (my basetime) eight years from now in 1896 at the 50th Anniversary of his professorship here at the University of Glasgow.

2500 guest attended, many of them predominate scientists of the day. The university library was filled with his inventions and awards. The Eastern, the Anglo-American and the Commercial Cable companies united to send a telegraph message from the university to the major cities of America and back, traveling 20,000 miles in only seven and a half minutes! Why did they do this? Because Thomson had made it possible.

By then Sir William Thomson was Lord Kelvin, the first scientist to be made a Lord. He took the title 1st Baron Kelvin for the river Kelvin that flows by the University of Glasgow campus. He will teach here for 53 years, despite generous offers from other universities.

Thomson is considered the greatest chemist of the 19th century and the father of modern physics. (It was still called Natural Philosophy, in his day.) He was a scientist, who believed science was useless without practical application, so he was also an inventor. Watching him lecture to a hall full of students, hanging on his every word, I think his role as teacher has been downplayed. He will inspire many budding scientists.

I carefully recorded his lecture. Afterwards I went up to Thomson to get a closer scan of him. Thomson is a charming, humble man with twinkling eyes despite a painful limp. I approached him as he was cleaning off the chalkboard and was able to record this short interview.

Excuse me, Sir William. My name is Dr. Howe. I would like to say I enjoyed your lecture.
Why thank you, sir. Are you a scientist?

Only of anthropology.
Ah! Have you been following Max Muller’s lectures on Natural Religion? Quite brilliant.

James Thomson, Sr.

It’s why I’m in town. Lovely city.
I always thought so, ever since my family moved here when I was nine.

You weren’t born in Glasgow?
No, my family is from Belfast. My father, James Thomson, decided to become a Presbyterian minister and University of Glasgow was one of the few colleges open to a farmer‘s son. Father returned to Ireland after he graduated. It turned out he was really a mathematician and eventually was given the Chair of Mathematics here at Glasgow.

James Thomson, Jr.

So you are not the only professor in the family?
By no means. My eldest brother, James, Jr. is teaching here now as a professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics. However, his eyesight is failing him. I’m not sure how much longer he can teach. Pity. He is really quite a genius. He has done a lot to improve turbines, water wheels and water pumps. He’s also done research on glacier motion.

So you two attended Glasgow University?
Yes, I first enrolled when I was ten.

Ten?
It’s not that extraordinary. They had program at the time for able young students. However I tried to work as hard as the older students. My brother James also enrolled. He was then twelve. When I was 17 father sent me to Cambridge.

University of Cambridge? That’s my alma mater. How did you like it?
I enjoyed it. I was on the sculling team. We rowed our way to victory in the Colquhoun Sculls of 1843. The only disappointment was the science department. It really hadn’t developed past the teachings of Isaac Newton. There really weren’t any facilities for study of experimental science. So when Glasgow offered me a position as professor of Natural Philosophy, I jumped at it. They had a school of thermodynamics here, which by the way my father had helped form.

What did you do between your appointment to Glasgow and graduating from Cambridge?
I took the train to Glasgow.

They made you a professor of one of the oldest, most prestigious universities in Great Britain right after you graduated?
Yes, I was only 22. My class wasn’t much younger than myself. I think it was my work in the mathematical analysis of electricity that convinced the University. However my youth did work against me. The next year when I attended the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting at Oxford, the other scholars there saw me as a precocious child. I had ideas on heat and temperature they found radical.

Yes, the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and the absolute zero scale you invented.
Proposed. I was only able to calculate absolute zero. Some one else hopefully will fill in the rest.

[They will only be able to start on that in the mid-twentieth century. They will call the units “Kelvin” in honor of Lord Kelvin.]

Is that why they knighted you?
No, that was for my work on the Trans-Atlantic Cable. They said it couldn’t be done, and indeed it couldn’t with the current material. So I had to invent better cables and equipment. I started out as a scientific advisor and wound up as the head engineer. I never considered myself an engineer, but discovered I had a talent for it. I think I have my father and brother to thank for that. Apparently engineering runs in our blood.

So you made it possible for people in New World to communicate with those in the Old World almost instantaneously.
I wasn’t the only one who made that happen. Several of my colleagues were knighted after the completion of the project.

Are there any projects you are working on currently?
Yes, perfecting the marine compass. Since they started using so much iron in ships it has caused magnetic deviation in the old compasses. I think I‘ve solved the problem.

How did you get involved in that?
I’m quite the sailor, don’t you know. All right, I’m captain of a 126 foot schooner, the Lalla Rookh. I got interested in seafaring I think after laying all that cable in the Atlantic. When poor Margaret, my first wife, finally succumbed to her very long illness. I was quite distraught. So I took a mistress--the sea.

The Lalla Rookh

Seemed wiser than taking to the bottle, I must say. I do hope you have found another life mate.
Yes, Fanny. Lovely woman. I had become good friends with Mr. Charles Blandy and his three daughters. So one day as I approached there home by ship, I signaled “Will you marry me?” Fanny signaled back “Yes.” I figured any women that sea savvy and with a sense of humor was the woman for me.

That is a charming story. She sounds like a delightful woman.
She is indeed. Excuse me, for my rudeness but I have a meeting to attend to. It was very nice to meet you, Dr. Howe.

And very nice to meet you, too, Lord Kel--erm, I mean, Sir William Thomson.
[I nearly got in hot water that time--373.15 Kelvin!]

Future Monument to Lord Kelvin
erected by Glasgow right after his death in 1908

The Very First Gifford Lecture

Monday, 12 November 1888 - Glasgow, Scotland

I am quite excited. Today will be the very first Gifford Lecture and I will be there to witness it! The famous and illustrious Gifford Lectures, which every scholar and scientist dreams of being invited to, one of the greatest honors any person can hope to attain.

Adam Lord Gifford

The Gifford Lectures are the legacy of Adam Gifford, the son of an Edingurgh merchant. Adam went into law and made a fortune as an advocate (lawyer) and then as a judge. Judge’s are given the title “Lord” in this time and place, so Adam is remembered as Lord Gifford. As a judge he tried to make his rulings based on common sense and fairness.

Lord Gifford had another life though. By day he was a judge, and by night a student of philosophy and metaphysics. After he retired he gave popular lectures on such subjects as Ralph Waldo Emerson, St. Bernard and Hindu reincarnation. He was an advocate for Natural Religion--religion based on common sense rather than on miracles. It is a marriage of science and religion. The Scots don’t see them as opposites any more than they see industry and art as opposites.

University of Glasgow as it looks now in 1888

When Lord Gifford died in 1887 he left £80,000 to the four Scottish universities (Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and St. Andrews) to establish a series of lectures on Natural Religion. The first will be given here at the University of Glasgow. Over the centuries, famous scientists, philosophers and theologians will address eager crowds on a multitude of subjects.

The first lecture will be given by Friedrich Max Müller, the famous philologist and Orientalist. His interests turned from poetry and music to philosophy early on. He did his doctoral dissertation on Spinoza’s Ethics. (Spinoza was a favorite of Lord Gifford’s, too.)

Müller always had a gift for languages, perhaps because his father was a poet. He learned Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. He left Leipzig University to go to Berlin to study with philosopher Friedrich Schelling and to translate the Upanishads for him.

From there he went to Paris to further his studies and then on the England to get access to the Sanskrit collection of the East India Company. (Learning French and English posed no problem for Müller.) He eventually became Oxford's first Professor of Comparative Theology and is considered one of the father’s of comparative religion. Müller is currently working as editor and one of the translators for Oxford University Press’ massive 50 volume Sacred Books of the East, a monument to Victorian scholarship.

Anthropology is in its infancy in the 19th century. Too many are using it to prove that their people are more civilized than everyone else who thinks differently. Personally I just find it fascinating that our species came up with so many ways to survive and to view the world. While Müller is a devout Lutheran, he respects the religions of others. For instance, he is a great admirer of Ramakrishna Paramhansa (1836-1886) and has authored several books and essays on the Indian Hindu mystic.

Friedrich Max Müller

Müller’s respect for others has earned him the condemnation of conservative ministers, who see him as attacking Christianity, which was never his intent. Even more disturbing to him are the racists using his research to “prove” their own distorted theories. If anything he felt that the Indo-European language roots proved that the “blackest Hindu and “fairest Scandinavian” were in fact descended from a common ancestor and thus an argument against racism.

And of course modern scholars could tear apart some of Müller’s theories--including ones he himself has long since abandoned by 1888. Others might find him a little too smug of his own culture. One must remember Müller was brought up in another time and didn’t have all the knowledge we now have. A thousand years from now, people will probably laugh at us, too, for being ignorant and too homo sapien-centric. Remember it was only in the 26th century that the study of sentient aliens was considered anthropology and not zoology.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Müller is how the Indians regard him. He is seen as an enlightened sage and his Oxford home is a place of pilgrimage for gurus traveling westward who want to meet the mahatman or “great soul.” While other Englishman belittle Indian traditions, Müller introduces them to the British and the rest of the English speaking world so they can really see India for the first time. The job of an anthropologist is not to pass judgment on another culture but to show it to the folks back home with all its beauty and ugliness. In other words, to show we are all human after all.

A list of Gifford Lectures speakers from 1888 to 2010
Sacred Books of the East for your perusal.