Перевод текста WILLIAM THOMSON
William Thomson was born on 26 June 1824 in Belfast, Ireland to mother Margaret Gardner and father James Thomson (a mathematics and engineering teacher at Royal Belfast Academical Institution). William was the second child born in a family of four children. He lost his mother at a very young age of 6 in 1830.
William suffered from heart problems and was very ill to the brink of dying at the age of 9. While his father was the professor in the university department of ‘Royal Belfast Academical Institution’, William got enrolled here. At the age of 10 William entered Glasgow University. The University had a system of providing several elementary school facilities for able students and William was definitely an able pupil to get enrolled in the institution. While studying in school William showed huge and natural interest in classics and sciences. It was quite obvious that William would take up higher studies which was greatly supported and made easy by his father who was a renowned teacher. In 1841 William was enrolled in Peterhouse College, Cambridge on his father’s introductory letters and great accommodation benefits arranged by his father.
William turned into a well-known learned professor barely at the young age of 22. He started giving lectures only after a few years had passed when he was a freshman in college.
Thomson was always greatly interested in the improvement of physical instrumentation, and he designed and implemented many new devices, including the mirrorgalvanometer that was used in the first successful sustained telegraph transmissions in transatlantic submarine cable. He was created Lord Kelvin for his work on the first transatlantic cable. Thomson had joined a group of industrialists in the mid 1850s on a project to lay a submarine cable between Ireland and Newfoundland. He played several roles in this project, being on the board of directors and also being an advisor on theoretical electrical matters.
He helped develop the second law of thermodynamics, and Kelvin argued that the key issue in the interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics was the explanation of irreversible processes. He noted that if entropy always increased, the universe would ultimately reach a state of uniform temperature and maximum entropy from which it would not be possible to extract any work. He called this the Heat Death of the Universe. Therefore he proposed a thermodynamical theory based on the dominance of the energy concept, on which he believed all physics should be based. He said the two laws of thermodynamics expressed the indestructibility and dissipation of energy. By 1847, Thomson had already gained a good reputation as a scientist when he attended the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Oxford where he stated “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) had slipped on ice during the winter of 1860-1861 which had fractured his leg. Since then he limped till his death on 17 December 1907.