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Absolute beginnings

Nature volume 428, page 804 (2004)Cite this article

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Degrees Kelvin: A Tale of Genius, Invention, and Tragedy

  • David Lindley
Joseph Henry Press: 2004. 366 pp. $27.95 0309090733 | ISBN: 0-309-09073-3

Recovering unfamiliar ideas from the past can be difficult, but David Lindley accepts the challenge, providing for the most part a fine survey of Lord Kelvin's life for a general audience. His narrative takes us from the child prodigy William Thomson to his later years as Lord Kelvin, the most honoured scientist and engineer of Victorian Britain. Lindley's early investigations formed the impression in his mind of a sharp contrast between the youthful Thomson, largely responsible for the science of thermodynamics, and the elderly Kelvin, unreasonably opposed to new scientific theories. Lindley's book explores that contrast.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. professor of history, mechanical engineering and philosophy at Iowa State University, Ames, 50011, Iowa, USA

    David B. Wilson

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  1. David B. Wilson
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He is the author of Kelvin and Stokes: A Comparative Study in Victorian Physics.

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Wilson, D. Absolute beginnings. Nature 428, 804 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/428804a

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