William Thomson Research Paper

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin William Thomson was born in Ireland on June 26, 1824 and was the fourth child born. His mother had three more children, then passed away when Thomson was at a young age. James Thomson, William’s father, was a professor as Glasgow University. William Thomson soon entered the Natural Philosophy department as Glasgow at the age of ten to further his studies. He received his education from Cambridge University where he earned a bachelor’s degree. Thomson lived a life of curiosity that led his to his discoveries. Before his death he had a total of seventy inventions and over 650 papers published. Although Thomson’s ideas and inventions aided several fields of studies, his major contributions changed the physics world in major ways. If I mentioned the name William Thomson to the average person, many would not know who I was talking about, but if I said 1st Baron Kelvin, many would reference the Kelvin scale because it is so well known. The Kelvin scale is the absolute temperature scale that is used world-wide today. He noted that once an object reaches absolute zero (which is the lowest temperature an object can reach) the particles stop moving completely. So instead of using negative numbers like the Celsius scale and Fahrenheit scale, Thomson decided …show more content…
The Second Law states that when two objects are together, heat will flow from the warmer object to the cooler object. Through his research, he discovered that it is impossible for a cold body to transfer heat to a warmer body; heat is always transferred to the colder body. He made this discovery when formulating the explanation of the steam engine. Also through the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the concept of work and efficiency is found. A machine cannot be 100% efficient, because as heat is transferred, some energy is lost and is not able to be transferred into