SOME VIEWS ON LORD KELVIN'S WORK 



By GEORGE GREEN, D.Sc. 

 Lecturer on Natural Philosophy, University of Glasgow 



The work of Lord Kelvin is so fundamental and his fields of 

 activity so diverse that it is practically impossible to estimate the 

 benefits conferred by it in his own time and still less possible to 

 estimate those yet to come from his moulding and directing 

 influence in the movements of his time. Broadly speaking, his 

 gift has been to teach us how to discover the processes of 

 Nature and how to bring them into common use. His pioneer 

 work in the training of his students in experimental physics was 

 the foundation of the modern laboratory. His numerous inven- 

 tions and his constant occupation with practical industrial affairs 

 as the daily duty of his life have wrought improvements of the 

 ordinary conditions of life that are enormous, have helped to 

 revolutionise our industrial system, and have pointed the line 

 of further progress by establishing research as an essential part 

 of industrial enterprise. His collected patents are almost as 

 bulky as the volumes of his collected scientific papers, and the 

 subjects to which they refer are as valuable in their potency for 

 the extension of knowledge as for good and useful daily 

 service. 



In the field of pure science we find the same feature of his 

 work. He not only adds to our knowledge ; he is the interpreter 

 and dispenser to mankind of the great works of others. When 

 not engaged in independent search he is shaping and transform- 

 ing the ideas of others for the daily use of his contemporaries, 

 and making their ideas more fit instruments for future work. 

 He brought to light the work of George Green of Nottingham 

 and revealed its value. What he received from Carnot and from 

 Joule he expounded in applications to the whole domain of 

 Physics, and defined the limitations to our use of energy by 

 discovering the great principle of Dissipation of Energy and 

 the Second Law of Thermodynamics. He took the discoveries 

 of Faraday and the investigations of Helmholtz on Vortex 



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