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Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 182417 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its contemporary form. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883, was its president 1890–1895, and in 1892 was the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in his honour. While the existence of a coldest possible temperature (absolute zero) was known prior to his work, Kelvin is known for determining its correct value as approximately −273.15 degrees Celsius or −459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. The Joule–Thomson effect is also named in his honour. He worked closely with m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Presidents Of The Royal Society
The president of the Royal Society (PRS) is the elected Head of the Royal Society of London who presides over meetings of the society's council. After informal meetings at Gresham College, the Royal Society was officially founded on 28 November 1660 when a group of academics decided to find "a College for the Promoting of Mathematicall Experimentall Learning", acquiring a Royal Charter on 15 July 1662. The Royal Charter nominated William Brouncker as president, and stipulated that future presidents should be elected by the Council and Fellows of the society at anniversary meetings each year on St. Andrew's Day (30 November). The details of the presidency were described by the second Royal Charter, which did not set any limit on how long a president could serve. There were considerable fluctuations in the president's term of office until well into the 19th century. By then, sentiment had turned against electing wealthy amateurs solely because they might become patrons of the soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomson Effect
The thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion of temperature differences to electric voltage and vice versa via a thermocouple. A thermoelectric device creates a voltage when there is a different temperature on each side. Conversely, when a voltage is applied to it, heat is transferred from one side to the other, creating a temperature difference. At the atomic scale, an applied temperature gradient causes charge carriers in the material to diffuse from the hot side to the cold side. This effect can be used to generate electricity, measure temperature or change the temperature of objects. Because the direction of heating and cooling is affected by the applied voltage, thermoelectric devices can be used as temperature controllers. The term "thermoelectric effect" encompasses three separately identified effects: the Seebeck effect, Peltier effect, and Thomson effect. The Seebeck and Peltier effects are different manifestations of the same physical process; textbooks may re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvin-Planck Statement
The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal experience concerning heat and energy interconversions. One simple statement of the law is that heat always moves from hotter objects to colder objects (or "downhill"), unless energy in some form is supplied to reverse the direction of heat flow. Another definition is: "Not all heat energy can be converted into work in a cyclic process."Young, H. D; Freedman, R. A. (2004). ''University Physics'', 11th edition. Pearson. p. 764. The second law of thermodynamics in other versions establishes the concept of entropy as a physical property of a thermodynamic system. It can be used to predict whether processes are forbidden despite obeying the requirement of conservation of energy as expressed in the first law of thermodynamics and provides necessary criteria for spontaneous processes. The second law may be formulated by the observation that the entropy of isolated systems left to spontaneous evolution cannot decrease ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvin–Helmholtz Mechanism
The Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism is an astronomical process that occurs when the surface of a star or a planet cools. The cooling causes the internal pressure to drop, and the star or planet shrinks as a result. This compression, in turn, heats the core of the star/planet. This mechanism is evident on Jupiter and Saturn and on brown dwarfs whose central temperatures are not high enough to undergo hydrogen fusion. It is estimated that Jupiter radiates more energy through this mechanism than it receives from the Sun, but Saturn might not. Jupiter has been estimated to shrink at a rate of approximately 1 mm/year by this process, corresponding to an internal flux of 7.485 W/m2. The mechanism was originally proposed by Kelvin and Helmholtz in the late nineteenth century to explain the source of energy of the Sun. By the mid-nineteenth century, conservation of energy had been accepted, and one consequence of this law of physics is that the Sun must have some energy source to contin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvin–Helmholtz Instability
The Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (after Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz) is a fluid instability that occurs when there is velocity shear in a single continuous fluid or a velocity difference across the interface between two fluids. Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities are visible in the atmospheres of planets and moons, such as in cloud formations on Earth or the Red Spot on Jupiter, and the atmospheres of the Sun and other stars. Theory overview and mathematical concepts Fluid dynamics predicts the onset of instability and transition to turbulent flow within fluids of different densities moving at different speeds. If surface tension is ignored, two fluids in parallel motion with different velocities and densities yield an interface that is unstable to short-wavelength perturbations for all speeds. However, surface tension is able to stabilize the short wavelength instability up to a threshold velocity. If the density and velocity vary continuously in space (wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvin Wave
A Kelvin wave is a wave in the ocean or atmosphere that balances the Earth's Coriolis force against a topographic boundary such as a coastline, or a waveguide such as the equator. A feature of a Kelvin wave is that it is non-dispersive, i.e., the phase speed of the wave crests is equal to the group speed of the wave energy for all frequencies. This means that it retains its shape as it moves in the alongshore direction over time. A Kelvin wave (fluid dynamics) is also a long scale perturbation mode of a vortex in superfluid dynamics; in terms of the meteorological or oceanographical derivation, one may assume that the meridional velocity component vanishes (i.e. there is no flow in the north–south direction, thus making the momentum and continuity equations much simpler). This wave is named after the discoverer, Lord Kelvin (1879). Coastal Kelvin wave In a stratified ocean of mean depth ''H'', perturbed by some amount ''η'', free waves propagate along coastal boundaries (and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvin Water Dropper
The Kelvin water dropper, invented by Scottish scientist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) in 1867, is a type of electrostatic generator. Kelvin referred to the device as his water-dropping condenser. The apparatus is variously called the Kelvin hydroelectric generator, the Kelvin electrostatic generator, or Lord Kelvin's thunderstorm. The device uses falling water to generate voltage differences by electrostatic induction occurring between interconnected, oppositely charged systems. This eventually leads to an electric arc discharging in the form of a spark. It is used in physics education to demonstrate the principles of electrostatics. Description A typical setup is shown in Fig. 1. A reservoir of water or other conducting liquid ''(top, grey)'' is connected to two hoses that release two falling streams of drops, which land in two buckets or containers ''(bottom, blue and red)''. Each stream passes (without touching) through a metal ring or open cylinder which is electricall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvin Material
The kelvin, symbol K, is the primary unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI), used alongside its prefixed forms and the degree Celsius. It is named after the Belfast-born and University of Glasgow-based engineer and physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907). The Kelvin scale is an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, meaning it uses absolute zero as its null (zero) point. Historically, the Kelvin scale was developed by shifting the starting point of the much-older Celsius scale down from the melting point of water to absolute zero, and its increments still closely approximate the historic definition of a degree Celsius, but since 2019 the scale has been defined by fixing the Boltzmann constant to be exactly . Hence, one kelvin is equal to a change in the thermodynamic temperature that results in a change of thermal energy by . The temperature in degree Celsius is now defined as the temperature in kelvins minus 273.15, meaning tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mirror Galvanometer
A mirror galvanometer is an ammeter that indicates it has sensed an electric current by deflecting a light beam with a mirror. The beam of light projected on a scale acts as a long massless pointer. In 1826, Johann Christian Poggendorff developed the mirror galvanometer for detecting electric currents. The apparatus is also known as a ''spot galvanometer'' after the spot of light produced in some models. Mirror galvanometers were used extensively in scientific instruments before reliable, stable electronic amplifiers were available. The most common uses were as recording equipment for seismometers and submarine cables used for telegraphy. In modern times, the term ''mirror galvanometer'' is also used for devices that move laser beams by rotating a mirror through a galvanometer set-up, often with a servo-like control loop. The name is often abbreviated as ''galvo''. Kelvin's galvanometer The mirror galvanometer was improved significantly by William Thomson, later to beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kinematic Coupling
Kinematic coupling describes fixtures designed to exactly constrain the part in question, providing precision and certainty of location. A canonical example of a kinematic coupling consists of three radial v-grooves in one part that mate with three hemispheres in another part. Each hemisphere has two contact points for a total of six contact points, enough to constrain all six of the part's degrees of freedom. An alternative design consists of three hemispheres on one part that fit respectively into a tetrahedral dent, a v-groove, and a flat. Background Kinematic couplings arose from the need of precision coupling between structural interfaces that were meant to be routinely taken apart and put back together. Kelvin Coupling The Kelvin coupling is named after William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) who published the design in 1868–71. It consists of three spherical surfaces that rest on a concave tetrahedron, a V-groove pointing towards the tetrahedron and a flat plate. The tetra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rayleigh's Equation (fluid Dynamics)
In fluid dynamics, Rayleigh's equation or Rayleigh stability equation is a linear ordinary differential equation to study the hydrodynamic stability of a parallel, incompressible and inviscid shear flow. The equation is: :(U-c) (\varphi'' - k^2 \varphi) - U'' \varphi=0, with U(z) the flow velocity of the steady base flow whose stability is to be studied and z is the cross-stream direction (i.e. perpendicular to the flow direction). Further \varphi(z) is the complex valued amplitude of the infinitesimal streamfunction perturbations applied to the base flow, k is the wavenumber of the perturbations and c is the phase speed with which the perturbations propagate in the flow direction. The prime denotes differentiation with respect to z. Background The equation is named after Lord Rayleigh, who introduced it in 1880. The Orr–Sommerfeld equation – introduced later, for the study of stability of parallel viscous flow – reduces to Rayleigh's equation when the viscosity is zero. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
