Dear Organlearners,
Greetings to all of you.
While doing research on the life and work of Lord Kelvin (William Thomson)
I came upon the following site:
< http://zapatopi.net/lordkelvin.html >
Such a work does terrible injustice to the stature of Lord Kelvin as a
scientist. It is a pity that in the first seven years of the Nobel Prizes'
history he was not awarded one. Lord Kelvin died in 1907 while the first
prizes were already awarded in 1901.
Perhaps Kelvin would not have qualified for a Nobel prize. In the first
half of his career he was seldom wrong while in the last half he was often
wrong. Great was this person because when shown to be wrong, he
immediately conceded to his error. So why was he so often wrong later in
life?
He began seeking the unifying principles in the ever diverging disciplines
of physics such as mechanics, electricity, magnetism, optics and heat. The
more physics became fragemented, the bolder he became in his speculations
to preserve the unity of physics. Later on he began to believe that only
the laws of energy and entropy would provide for such a unification.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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