Popular Lectures and Addresses

A collection of Kelvin's scientific lectures on geology, together with uncollected talks given between 1866 and 1893.

William Thomson (Author)

9781108029780, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2011

622 pages, 13 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.5 cm, 0.78 kg

William Thomson, Baron Kelvin (1824–1907), was educated at Glasgow and Cambridge. While only in his twenties, he was awarded the University of Glasgow's chair in natural philosophy, which he was to hold for over fifty years. He is best known through the Kelvin, the unit of measurement of temperature named after him in consequence of his development of an absolute scale of temperature. These volumes collect together Kelvin's lectures for a wider audience. In a convivial but never condescending style, he outlines a range of scientific subjects to audiences of his fellow scientists. The range of topics covered reflects Kelvin's broad interests and his stature as one of the most eminent of Victorian scientists. Volume 2 is mainly concerned with geology and was actually published last, in 1894. It includes additional lectures given between 1866 and 1893 that were not included in the other two volumes.

12. Protection of vegetation from cold
13. The 'doctrine of uniformity' in geology briefly refuted
14. On geological time
15. On geological dynamics
16. Presidential address to the British Association, Edinburgh, 1871
17. Presidential address to the Society of Telegraph Engineers, 1874
18. Review of evidence regarding the physical condition of the earth
19. Geological climate
20. The internal condition of the earth as to temperature, fluidity, and rigidity
21. Polar ice-caps and their influence in changing sea levels
22. On the rate of a clock or chronometer as influenced by the mode of suspension
23. On a new astronomical clock
24. On beats of imperfect harmonies
25. On the origin and transformation of motive power
26. On the sources of energy in nature available to man for the production of mechanical effect
27. On the dissipation of energy
28. The Bangor laboratories
29. Presidential addresses
30. Address delivered on the occasion of the unveiling of Joule's statue in Manchester Town Hall
31. Isoperimetrical problems
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]