Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more

Recommended product

Popular links

Popular links


Energy and Empire

Energy and Empire

Energy and Empire

A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin
Crosbie Smith, University of Kent, Canterbury
M. Norton Wise, University of California, Los Angeles
November 1989
Unavailable - out of print October 2004
Hardback
9780521261739
Out of Print
Hardback

    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.

    Product details

    November 1989
    Hardback
    9780521261739
    898 pages
    236 × 159 × 66 mm
    1.56kg
    Unavailable - out of print October 2004

    Table of Contents

    • List of illustrations
    • Preface
    • Footnote abbreviations
    • Part I. The Making of the Natural Philosopher:
    • 1. From the ashes of revolution
    • 2. Clydeside
    • 3. A Cambridge undergraduate
    • 4. The changing tradition of natural philosophy
    • 5. Professor William Thomson
    • Part II. The Transformation of Classical Physics:
    • 6. The language of mathematical physics
    • 7. The kinematics of field theory and the nature of electricity
    • 8. The dynamics of field theory: work, ponderomotive force, and extremum conditions
    • 9. Thermodynamics: the years of uncertainty
    • 10. Thermodynamics: the years of resolution
    • 11. T & T' of treatise on natural philosophy
    • 12. The hydrodynamics of matter
    • 13. Telegraph signals and light waves
    • Thomson versus Maxwell
    • Part III. The Economy of Nature: The Economy of Nature: The Great Storehouse of Creation:
    • 14. The irreversible cosmos
    • 15. The age of the sun controversies
    • 16. The secular cooling of the earth
    • 17. The age of the earth controversies
    • 18. The habitation of earth
    • Part IV. Energy, Economy, and Empire: The Relief of Man's Estate:
    • 19. The telegraphic art
    • 20. Measurement and marketing: the economics of electricity
    • 21. Rule, Britannia: the art of navigation
    • 22. The magnetic compass
    • 23. Baron Kelvin of Largs
    • Bibliography
    • Index.
      Authors
    • Crosbie Smith , University of Kent, Canterbury
    • M. Norton Wise , University of California, Los Angeles