Lord Kelvin citáty
Lord Kelvin
Datum narození: 26. červen 1824
Datum úmrtí: 17. prosinec 1907
Další jména:Lord William Thomson Kelvin, William Kelvin, William Thomson, 1. Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, známý spíše pod svým šlechtickým jménem lord Kelvin of Largs, byl skotský fyzik a jeden z nejvýznačnějších fyziků.
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Citáty Lord Kelvin
„Létací prostředky těžší než vzduch jsou čirým nesmyslem.“
— Lord Kelvin
prezident Royal Society, 1895
„I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning“
— William Thomson
Context: I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation”. I was greatly interested in your work with kites; but I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aëronautical Society.
As a response to Major B. F. S. Baden Powell's request to join the Aeronautical Society, December 8, 1896 http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/letters.html#baden-powell.
Often reproduced out of context and without citation to any primary source as "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible", like in The Experts Speak : The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (1984) by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, p. 236
„The beauty and clearness of the dynamical theory, which asserts heat and light to be modes of motion, is at present obscured by two clouds.“
— William Thomson
Context: The beauty and clearness of the dynamical theory, which asserts heat and light to be modes of motion, is at present obscured by two clouds. I. The first came into existence with the undulatory theory of light, and was dealt with by Fresnel and Dr. Thomas Young; it involved the question, how could the earth move through an elastic solid, such as essentially is the luminiferous ether? II. The second is the Maxwell–Boltzmann doctrine regarding the partition of energy.
From a 1900, April 27, , Sixth Series, 2, 1–40 (1901).
„It is conceivable that animal life might have the attribute of using the heat of surrounding matter, at its natural temperature, as a source of energy for mechanical effect.... The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific enquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms.“
— William Thomson
As quoted in The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910), by Silvanus Phillips, Volume 2, (2005 edition, . p. 1093)
„Tesla has contributed more to electrical science than any man up to his time.“
— William Thomson
Statement of 1896, as quoted in Prodigal Genius : The Life of Nikola Tesla (2007) by James J. O'Neill
„There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon the practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application; and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.“
— William Thomson
Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883), published in Popular Lectures Vol. I, p. 73, as quoted in The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910) by Silvanus Phillips Thompson
„Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.“
— William Thomson
Quoted in Life of Lord Kelvin (1910) by Silvanus Phillips Thompson
„If the water flow down by a gradual natural channel, its potential energy is gradually converted into heat by fluid friction, according to an admirable discovery made by Mr Joule of Manchester above twelve years ago, which has led to the greatest reform that physical science has experienced since the days of Newton. From that discovery, it may be concluded with certainty that heat is not matter, but some kind of motion among the particles of matter; a conclusion established, it is true, by Sir Humphrey Davy and Count Rumford at the end of last century, but ignored by even the highest scientific men during a period of more than forty years.“
— William Thomson
Mathematical and Physical Papers, Vol.2 http://books.google.com/books?id=kNrVAAAAMAAJ (1884) "On Mechanical Antecedents of Motion, Heat and Light" (originally published 1854, 1855)
„There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.“
— William Thomson
Misattributed to Kelvin since the 1980s, either without citation or stating that it was made in an address to the in 1900. and the quote is instead a paraphrase of Albert A. Michelson, who in 1894 stated: "… it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established … An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals."
„To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.“
— William Thomson
Lord Kelvin’s Replies to Addresses given on the Celebration of the Jubilee of his Professorship (June 15-17, 1896). Quoted in Lord Kelvin, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow 1846-1899 (1899) by George F. Fitzgerald http://historical.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cul.math/docviewer?did=03620002
„Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but 'vector' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.“
— William Thomson
Letter to G. F. FitzGerald (1896) as quoted in A History of Vector Analysis : The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System (1994) by Michael J. Crowe, p. 120<!-- also quoted in Vector Calculus (1976) by Jerrold E. Marsden and Anthony J. Tromba -->
„Quaternions came from Hamilton after his really good work had been done, and though beautifully ingenious, have been an unmixed evil to those who have touched them in any way.“
— William Thomson
Letter to Robert Baldwin Hayward (1892), as quoted in Energy and Empire : A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (1989) by Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise
„Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.“
— William Thomson
As quoted by Silvanus Phillips Thompson, The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs (1910) Vol. 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=S_PPAAAAMAAJ, p. 1124
