Lord Kelvin : his life and work / by Alexander Russell.

  • Alexander Russell
Date:
[1912]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lord Kelvin : his life and work / by Alexander Russell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    alarming statement that candidates must answer all the questions set with perfect accuracy. In 1839, when only fifteen, William gained a University medal for an essay on the figure of the earth. He also gained prizes in classics and logic, beating general very formidable competitors, one of whom—John Caird— was afterwards Principal of the University. Amongst the many friends he made with his fellow-students was Francis Sandford, son of Sir Daniel Sandford, the Pro- fessor of Greek. Francis Sandford went to Oxford as a Snell exhibitioner, and afterwards was well knowm as a great educationahst. As Lord Sandford of Sandford, he was one of Kelvin’s sponsors when he entered thei House of Lords. Lord Kelvin always looked back with pride and ad- miration to the University of his young days. Whem giving his inaugural address, as Chancellor of the Uni-- versity, in 1904, he made a spirited reply to the accusa-- tion that the Glasgow University of his yoimg days was i only a stagnant survival of mediaevahsm. “ The University of Adam Smith, James Watt, andl Thomas Reid was never stagnant.” Nearly two cen-- turies ago it had a laboratory of human anatomy.. ' Seventy-five years ago it had the first students’ chemical 1 ' laboratory, and sixty-five years ago it had the first: professorship of engineering in the British Empire.. Kelvin himself started the first physical laboratory? in this country, using a deserted wine-cellar in an oldi professorial house for this purpose. This shows the pointlessness of the accusation. In 1840 Professor Thomson, with some of his family, made a tour in Germany. During this tour William read for the first time Fourier’s great treatise on the.' Conduction of Heat, which had been published eighteen; years previously. The many results obtained by mathe-
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