Book Description
This study of Lord Kelvin, the most famous mathematical physicist of 19th-century Britain, delivers on a speculation long entertained by historians of science that Victorian physics expressed in its very content the industrial society that produced it. ... Read more

Book Description
An important component of a biography of any great scientist isthat the biographer also have deep scientific knowledge. Thisholds true for Silvanus P. Thompson, a scientist of distinctionwho authored this biography of Lord Kelvin. Thompson was aFellow of the Royal Society, President of the Physical Society,President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, andPresident of the Illuminating Engineering Society---all within asix year span. He also held the office of president for otherscientific organizations.

This biography was begun in 1906 and published in 1910. It wasre-issued in 1976 by Chelsea Publishing. The work is consideredthe definitive biography of Lord Kelvin. It includes Kelvin'spersonal recollections and data. His death in 1907 affected theproject by extending the scope of the original work. He leftletters, diaries, and other documents that supplemented theexisting information. These documents would allow Thompson tocreate a much more comprehensive account of Kelvin's career thanwas previously possible.

From the Preface by Thompson: "It has been the author's desire tolet documents and letters speak as far as possible forthemselves; and if he has not always been able to avoid lettinghis own views tinge these pages, he has at least endeavoured toavoid attributing to others that which is only his own.Doubtless there are many of Lord Kelvin's former pupils who willfind gaps in the presentation of his life and character, as mustneeds be when the author can himself claim no nearer associationthan that of disciple. But the disciple of one who was himselfconspicuously faithful in little things, must at least try to befaithful. The peculiar and affectionate admiration, amounting insome almost to worship, which characterizes those who had thehigh privilege of that more intimate association, spreads farbeyond their circle to the disciple. Let it be hoped that theaffectionate admiration which he too shares may not have warpedhis judgment." ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Catchy and informative book!
Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth by Joe D. Burchfield is one the most interesting books I have ever read. It focuses on the debate over the earth's age which Lord Kelvin was devoted to finding out. With his theories and principles, he amazed the scientific world in discovering the earth's age. Despite the constant opposition, criticism and controversy he received, his ideas sparked geologists, astronomers, physicists, and biologists of his time. Even though his assumptions and calculations of the earth's age were incorrect, his work encouraged many other scientists to calculate the actual age of the earth. Joe D. Burchfield, a professor at Northern Illinois, does a great job gathering all the arguments, principles, and theories involved in Kelvin's discovery. Burchfield was influenced by Kelvin to show the interaction of other sciences, especially geology and physics, opposing each other in one of the most intense debates in scientific history. No one ever thinks about the how the earth's age was calculated, but it is a very informative and interesting topic. This book, in detailed information, offers a close view into this topic. At the same time, it gives many effects of Kelvin's work, such as influences, opposition and controversies, and much more! I would recommend this book to people who are interested in science, especially in geology and physics, or to anyone who is curious by how the earth's age was calculated. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Unsuccessful
Essentially a pastiche of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, HG wells, and Victorian adventure stories.Written with a breathless style and not enough humor to overcome the cliched characterization.The plot features a slightly confusing effort at use of time travel paradoxes.

Not my cup of tea
This book wasn't to my liking.Like its predecessor, the villians are absurd - even more so than in Homunculus.They are like bad Adam-West-era Batman villians.And the time travel/history altering that goes on makes this hard to follow at points.And sometimes the characters' motivations are kind of difficult to understand (I mean, let your enemy die already!)Explosions, cackling insane villians damaging toy elephants (is that supposed to be symbolic or suggestive of the later animal damaging that goes on?)... this book was weird.Plus... why do the villians in these books always have to do yucky stuff to animals?Ugh.

That being said... the end is subtle and wonderful.Blaylock does a wonderful job of throughly crushing his hapless hero, and so his final redemption is completely, and convincingly, sweet.

An astutely told science fiction adventure
Deftly written by James P. Blaylock (a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award), Lord Kelvin's Machine is a fantastic steampunk saga set in Victorian London. Our intrepid hero, Langdon St. Ives, is devastated by murder and surrounded by mayhem in the midst of an uproar over (and battles to possess) a wondrous machine with the power to travel through Time itself. An astutely told science fiction adventure laced through and through with humanity, reflection, high escapades, drama, and coming to grips with the terrible specter of death, Lord Kelvin's Machine is enthusiastically recommended reading for all dedicated science fiction enthusiasts.

An entertaining jaunt
Probably the best thing one can say about this book is that after this he got loads better.This novel shows Blaylock attempting to write a alternate historical fantasy (I think, though it's never clearly said) with a knotted twisting plot while at the same time having a little fun with it.Most of it comes off like he was reading his good friend Tim Power's novels and thought, "Hey I could do that!" but this kind of thing definitely isn't where his strengths are.The blurbs on the back and front tout it as a time travelling novel and it sort of is one of those but you have to get through two other parts with the same characters . . . the main character is a detective/scientist named St. Ives who is trying to stop a diabolical professor, especially after the man killed the love of his life.The title machine comes in early for a totally different reason (and it's never explained how they decide to use it to travel in time) and the science must be parody but it's played dead serious which sort of deflates the purpose.So they're entertaining but don't seem to move any kind of plot forward . . . it's also hard to get a handle on St Ives, all you ever hear is how brilliant he is but you never really see him dedude anything or work hard at it, he just knows everything and Blaylock seems to operate on the idea that if you repeat something often enough people will believe you.The third part, featuring mostly only St Ives nearly redeems the novel . . . after nearly beating it into you that he's at his wits end and is totally depressed and numb, things finally start happening and lots of interesting twists come in . . . unfortunately the ultimate resolution of the book makes you wonder why he just didn't do it earlier . . . frankly this feels like a short story padded out for whatever reason.Maybe Blaylock liked the characters.But honestly if you just took the prologue and the third part you would have a fine novella or the like.After this I think he abandoned the historical fantasy stuff and leaned more towards merging modern fantasy with the viewpoint of ordinary people and how it affects them . . . that he did brilliantly and those are the books you should seek out.(...) ... Read more

Book Description
The treatises in this volume delivered by the fathers of their respective fields offer a glimpse into a time when the frontier of a science could be revolutionized by one person. The 134 illustrations provide an interactive side to these instructive lectures. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is a journal article from World Patent Information, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper presents a description and review of the patents--and many corresponding commercial products--of the 19th century scientist and entrepreneur William Thomson (Lord Kelvin). The patents cover the period from 1854 to 1907. William Thomson's patents included marine navigational apparatus and electrical measurement instruments. The paper concludes that the application of some of the 19th century theories of William Thomson continues to be a valuable source of patentable ideas. ... Read more

Book Description
Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), arguably Britain's most eminent scientist after Newton, spent much of his life in work which led to the development of today's electrical units and standards. Despite his influence, there are few biographies of stature (largely due to the abstruse nature of much of his technical research). This treatment concentrates upon his work in three phases; discovery of the fundamental concepts and coding them into universal laws, leading the adoption of the metric system, and securing worldwide use of units and standards (now the IEC system). ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Historical Mathematics Monographs collection. ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1893 edition by the University Press, Cambridge. ... Read more