THE KELVIN LECTURE : « THE LIFE AND WORK OF 

 LORD KELVIN.* 



(With 1 plate.) 



[Delivered April 30, 1908. Abridged by request and revised for the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution April 6, 1909.] 



By Prof. SiLVANus P. Thompson, D. Sc, F. R. S., 

 Past President of the Inatitution of Electrical Engineers. 



On the ITtli of December, 1907, aged 83 years, died William 

 Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. 



Adequately to set forth the life and work of a man who so early 

 won and who for so long maintained a foremost place in the ranks 

 of science were a task that is frankly impossible. The greatness 

 of a man of such commanding abilities and such profound influence 

 can not rightly be gauged by his contemporaries, however intimately 

 they may have known him. But if by the very circumstance that 

 we have lived so near to him we are debarred from rightly estimating 

 his greatness, we at least have the advantage over posterity that we 

 have been able to speak with him fact to face, to learn at first hand 

 his modes of thought, to sit at his feet as students or disciples, to 

 marvel at his strokes of genius achieved before our very eyes, to learn 

 to love him for his single-hearted enthusiasms, for his kindliness of 

 soul, his unaffected simplicity of life. 



But if we may not attempt the impossible, we may at least essay 

 the task of setting down in simple fashion some account of those 

 things which he achieved. 



Let me first set down in briefest outline a sketch of his early life. 



William Thomson was born on June 26, 1824, in Belfast, being 

 the second son and fourth child of James and Margaret Thomson. 

 James Thomson, who was at that time professor of mathematics in 



<^ Founded by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (of Great Britain) in 

 memory of the work of the Right Hon. Loi'd Kelvin, O. M., G. C. V. O., F. R. S., 

 and of his connection with the institution as president in 1874, in 1889, and 

 in 1907. 



^ Reprinted, by permission, from Journal of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers, London, vol. 41, 1908, pp. 401-423. 



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