Product Description
William Thompson (1824-1907), later Lord Kelvin, was the foremost scientific figure of an age that saw the quest of classical physics concluded and marked the beginning of the modern era of atomic physics and relativity. Kelvin's role in the 19th-century scientific revolution can be compared with Newton's position in the 17th-century and Einstein's in the 20th.Kelvin meets no simple definition of scientist-engineer. The reader of his biography will be introduced to an extraordinary figure of a past era who in no way fits the image of the modern specialist. It is just this characteristic of Kelvin's life that will take readers, scientists and nonscientists, into the wider universe of technological innovation derived from scientific theory. Kelvin's ideas are expressed in words, not in the language of mathematics. Kelvin directly influenced James Clerk Maxwell, whose work culminated in the electromagnetic theory of light, the theory that ushered in the modern period of electrical science an technology. Kelvin's work on the Atlantic cable shortened the space between Europe and America from weeks to seconds. His controversy with the Darwinians resulted in one of the few scientific debates that the Victorian public followed.Kelvin was the nonpareil scientist of the 19th century, and his biography encompasses the dynamic scientific changes of the Victorian age. ... Read more

Product Description
This study of Lord Kelvin, the most famous mathematical physicist of 19th-century Britain, delivers on a speculation long entertained by historians of science that Victorian physics expressed in its very content the industrial society that produced it. ... Read more

Product Description
Burchfield charts the enormous impact made by Lord Kelvin's application of thermodynamic laws to the question of the earth's age and the heated debate his ideas sparked among British Victorian physicists, astronomers, geologists, and biologists.

"Anyone interested in geologic time, and that should include all geologists and a fair smattering of biologists, physicists and chemists, should make Burchfield's commendable and time-tested volume part of their personal library"--Brent Darymple, Quartely Review of Biology ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Catchy and informative book!
Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth by Joe D. Burchfield is one the most interesting books I have ever read. It focuses on the debate over the earth's age which Lord Kelvin was devoted to finding out. With his theories and principles, he amazed the scientific world in discovering the earth's age. Despite the constant opposition, criticism and controversy he received, his ideas sparked geologists, astronomers, physicists, and biologists of his time. Even though his assumptions and calculations of the earth's age were incorrect, his work encouraged many other scientists to calculate the actual age of the earth. Joe D. Burchfield, a professor at Northern Illinois, does a great job gathering all the arguments, principles, and theories involved in Kelvin's discovery. Burchfield was influenced by Kelvin to show the interaction of other sciences, especially geology and physics, opposing each other in one of the most intense debates in scientific history. No one ever thinks about the how the earth's age was calculated, but it is a very informative and interesting topic. This book, in detailed information, offers a close view into this topic. At the same time, it gives many effects of Kelvin's work, such as influences, opposition and controversies, and much more! I would recommend this book to people who are interested in science, especially in geology and physics, or to anyone who is curious by how the earth's age was calculated. ... Read more

Product Description
Determined to avert the doom of his beloved wife, scientist and detective Langdon St. Ives sees his only hope for doing so in Lord Kelvin's time machine, but the diabolical Dr. Ignacio Narbondo has other plans for the invention. Reprint. AB. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Unsuccessful
Essentially a pastiche of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, HG wells, and Victorian adventure stories.Written with a breathless style and not enough humor to overcome the cliched characterization.The plot features a slightly confusing effort at use of time travel paradoxes.

Not my cup of tea
This book wasn't to my liking.Like its predecessor, the villians are absurd - even more so than in Homunculus.They are like bad Adam-West-era Batman villians.And the time travel/history altering that goes on makes this hard to follow at points.And sometimes the characters' motivations are kind of difficult to understand (I mean, let your enemy die already!)Explosions, cackling insane villians damaging toy elephants (is that supposed to be symbolic or suggestive of the later animal damaging that goes on?)... this book was weird.Plus... why do the villians in these books always have to do yucky stuff to animals?Ugh.

That being said... the end is subtle and wonderful.Blaylock does a wonderful job of throughly crushing his hapless hero, and so his final redemption is completely, and convincingly, sweet.

An astutely told science fiction adventure
Deftly written by James P. Blaylock (a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award), Lord Kelvin's Machine is a fantastic steampunk saga set in Victorian London. Our intrepid hero, Langdon St. Ives, is devastated by murder and surrounded by mayhem in the midst of an uproar over (and battles to possess) a wondrous machine with the power to travel through Time itself. An astutely told science fiction adventure laced through and through with humanity, reflection, high escapades, drama, and coming to grips with the terrible specter of death, Lord Kelvin's Machine is enthusiastically recommended reading for all dedicated science fiction enthusiasts.

An entertaining jaunt
Probably the best thing one can say about this book is that after this he got loads better.This novel shows Blaylock attempting to write a alternate historical fantasy (I think, though it's never clearly said) with a knotted twisting plot while at the same time having a little fun with it.Most of it comes off like he was reading his good friend Tim Power's novels and thought, "Hey I could do that!" but this kind of thing definitely isn't where his strengths are.The blurbs on the back and front tout it as a time travelling novel and it sort of is one of those but you have to get through two other parts with the same characters . . . the main character is a detective/scientist named St. Ives who is trying to stop a diabolical professor, especially after the man killed the love of his life.The title machine comes in early for a totally different reason (and it's never explained how they decide to use it to travel in time) and the science must be parody but it's played dead serious which sort of deflates the purpose.So they're entertaining but don't seem to move any kind of plot forward . . . it's also hard to get a handle on St Ives, all you ever hear is how brilliant he is but you never really see him dedude anything or work hard at it, he just knows everything and Blaylock seems to operate on the idea that if you repeat something often enough people will believe you.The third part, featuring mostly only St Ives nearly redeems the novel . . . after nearly beating it into you that he's at his wits end and is totally depressed and numb, things finally start happening and lots of interesting twists come in . . . unfortunately the ultimate resolution of the book makes you wonder why he just didn't do it earlier . . . frankly this feels like a short story padded out for whatever reason.Maybe Blaylock liked the characters.But honestly if you just took the prologue and the third part you would have a fine novella or the like.After this I think he abandoned the historical fantasy stuff and leaned more towards merging modern fantasy with the viewpoint of ordinary people and how it affects them . . . that he did brilliantly and those are the books you should seek out.(...) ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: Glasgow, J. MacLehose; Publication date: 1899; Subjects: Biography ... Read more

Product Description
Lord Kelvin; His Life And Work.PREFACE IN the life of a military leader the account of the preparations for his campaigns, his successes and failures, naturally hold the most prominent place. Also, in giving even a brief description of the life of a leader of science, a relatively large amaunt of pace must be devoted to his work. A whole-headed devotion. to the development of science for the material and intellectual welfare of humanity is the keynote of Kelvins life. The author has attempted to describe the scientific work in simple Ianguage, but, owing to the very advanced and abstruse nature of much of Kelvins work, he ia conscious that some of it will remain obscure the non-scientific reader. We will be happy however, if anything he has written induces the reader to make a further study of the subject in Kelvins original memoirs, which are now accessible to all in his published works. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Energy and Empire is a definitive biographical study of Lord Kelvin, the most famous mathematical physicist of nineteenth-century Britain. As part of this study, it delivers on a speculation long entertained by historians of science, that Victorian physics expressed in its very content the industrial society that produced it. Born into a family committed to liberal political reform and personal advancement, William Thomson identified himself as much with the shipyards and engineering works of his adopted city of Glasgow as with the democratic education offered in its university. Building outward from this secure base he integrated his national and international activities into that heady period of almost total British supremacy in industrial power, maritime expansion and imperial influence. This meticulously researched contextual biography of an eminent scientist will be of interest to historians of science and technology; intellectual, social and economic historians; physicists; engineers; geologists; and philosophers of science. ... Read more

Product Description
An important component of a biography of any great scientist is that the biographer also have deep scientific knowledge. This holds true for Silvanus P. Thompson, a scientist of distinction who authored this biography of Lord Kelvin. Thompson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, President of the Physical Society, President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and President of the Illuminating Engineering Society--all within a six year span. He also held the office of president for other scientific organizations. This biography was begun in 1906 and published in 1910. It was re-issued in 1976 by Chelsea Publishing. The work is considered the definitive biography of Lord Kelvin. It includes Kelvin's personal recollections and data. His death in 1907 affected the project by extending the scope of the original work. He left letters, diaries, and other documents that supplemented the existing information. These documents would allow Thompson to create a much more comprehensive account of Kelvin's career than was previously possible. From the Preface by Thompson: ``It has been the author's desire to let documents and letters speak as far as possible for themselves; and if he has not always been able to avoid letting his own views tinge these pages, he has at least endeavoured to avoid attributing to others that which is only his own. Doubtless there are many of Lord Kelvin's former pupils who will find gaps in the presentation of his life and character, as must needs be when the author can himself claim no nearer association than that of disciple. But the disciple of one who was himself conspicuously faithful in little things, must at least try to be faithful. The peculiar and affectionate admiration, amounting in some almost to worship, which characterizes those who had the high privilege of that more intimate association, spreads far beyond their circle to the disciple. Let it be hoped that the affectionate admiration which he too shares may not have warped his judgment.'' ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1893 edition by the University Press, Cambridge. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1908.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1884 Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) delivered a significant series of lectures on physics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The lectures remain important because, through their explicit presentation of the theories and metaphysical assumptions of the Newtonian mechanistic tradition, they illuminate the roots of the revolution in physics that began around 1900.This book presents the twenty lectures in their original form for the first time. (A greatly revised version of the lectures appeared in 1904.) In addition, it contains ten original essays in which well-known historians and philosophers of science discuss the physical issues raised in the Baltimore Lectures and developments in theoretical physics since they were delivered.Several of the accompanying essays deal with differences between Kelvin's views of molecular dynamics and the wave theory of light and the ultimately more successful electromagnetic concepts of James Clerk Maxwell. Others consider G. F. FitzGerald's approach to the question of mechanical models and Ernest Rutherford's attitudes toward theoretical matters.The philosophical context of the Baltimore Lectures is taken up, along with the subsequent development of theoretical physics. Several essays reflect upon issues important in the era of relativity and quantum theory - among them the quantum-measurement problem, space-time and action at a distance, parts and wholes, locality and nonlocality, and the transition from natural philosophy to the metaphilosophy of science.Following an introduction by Robert W Kargon, the essayists who address theoretical physics in Kelvin's time and after are P. M. Harmon, Bruce J. Hunt, M. Norton Wise, Crosbie Smith, Howard Stein, Lawrence Badash, Abner Shimony, Paul Teller, John Earman, Arthur Fine, and Thomas Nickles.The editors are affiliated with the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science at the Johns Hopkins University. This volume is the second in a series published by The MIT Press for the Center. The first volume, Observation, Experiment, and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science, edited by Peter Achinstein and Owen Hannaway, was published in 1985. A Bradford Book. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more