James Prescott Joule (; 24 December 1818 11 October 1889) was an English

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, mathematician and

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer ...

, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work (see energy). This led to the law of conservation of energy, which in turn led to the development of the

first law of thermodynamics The first law of thermodynamics is a formulation of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic processes. It distinguishes in principle two forms of energy transfer, heat and thermodynamic work for a system of a constant am ...

. The

SI derived unit SI derived units are units of measurement derived from the seven base units specified by the International System of Units (SI). They can be expressed as a product (or ratio) of one or more of the base units, possibly scaled by an appropriate p ...

of energy, the

joule The joule ( , ; symbol: J) is the unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of 1 newton displaces a mass through a distance of 1 metre in the direction of the force appli ...

, is named after him. He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, which came to be called the

Kelvin 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 ...

scale. Joule also made observations of magnetostriction, and he found the relationship between the current through a

resistor A resistor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element. In electronic circuits, resistors are used to reduce current flow, adjust signal levels, to divide voltages, bias active e ...

and the heat dissipated, which is also called Joule's first law. His experiments about energy transformations were first published in 1843.

Early years

James Joule was born in 1818, the son of Benjamin Joule (1784–1858), a wealthy

, and his wife, Alice Prescott, on New Bailey Street in Salford. Joule was tutored as a young man by the famous scientist

John Dalton John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into Color blindness, colour blindness, which ...

and was strongly influenced by chemist William Henry and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

engineers Peter Ewart and

Eaton Hodgkinson Eaton A. Hodgkinson FRS (26 February 1789 – 18 June 1861) was an English engineer, a pioneer of the application of mathematics to problems of structural design. Early life Hodgkinson was born in the village of Anderton, near Northwich, Ch ...

. He was fascinated by electricity, and he and his brother experimented by giving electric shocks to each other and to the family's servants. As an adult, Joule managed the brewery. Science was merely a serious hobby. Sometime around 1840, he started to investigate the feasibility of replacing the brewery's

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be ...

s with the newly invented

electric motor An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate f ...

. His first scientific papers on the subject were contributed to William Sturgeon's ''Annals of Electricity''. Joule was a member of the London Electrical Society, established by Sturgeon and others. Motivated in part by a businessman's desire to quantify the economics of the choice, and in part by his scientific inquisitiveness, he set out to determine which prime mover was more efficient. He discovered Joule's first law in 1841, that ''the heat which is evolved by the proper action of any voltaic current is proportional to the square of the intensity of that current, multiplied by the resistance to

conduction Conductor or conduction may refer to: Music * Conductor (music), a person who leads a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra. * ''Conductor'' (album), an album by indie rock band The Comas * Conduction, a type of structured free improvisation ...

which it experiences''. He went on to realize that burning a pound of coal in a steam engine was more economical than a costly pound of

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

consumed in an electric

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

. Joule captured the output of the alternative methods in terms of a common standard, the ability to raise a mass weighing one pound to a height of one foot, the ''foot-pound''. However, Joule's interest diverted from the narrow financial question to that of how much work could be extracted from a given source, leading him to speculate about the convertibility of energy. In 1843 he published results of experiments showing that the heating effect he had quantified in 1841 was due to generation of heat in the conductor and not its transfer from another part of the equipment. This was a direct challenge to the

caloric theory The caloric theory is an obsolete scientific theory that heat consists of a self-repellent fluid called caloric that flows from hotter bodies to colder bodies. Caloric was also thought of as a weightless gas that could pass in and out of pores ...

which held that heat could neither be created or destroyed. Caloric theory had dominated thinking in the science of heat since introduced by

Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS (

Sadi Carnot's caloric theory of the

heat engine In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. It does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower stat ...

since 1824 ensured that the young Joule, working outside either

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

or the engineering profession, had a difficult road ahead. Supporters of the caloric theory readily pointed to the symmetry of the Peltier–Seebeck effect to claim that heat and current were convertible in an, at least approximately, reversible process.

The mechanical equivalent of heat

Further experiments and measurements with his electric motor led Joule to estimate the ''

mechanical equivalent of heat In the history of science, the mechanical equivalent of heat states that motion and heat are mutually interchangeable and that in every case, a given amount of work would generate the same amount of heat, provided the work done is totally conve ...

'' as 4.1868 joules per

calorie The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of o ...

of work to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one Kelvin. He announced his results at a meeting of the chemical section of the

British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chi ...

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

in August 1843 and was met by silence. Joule was undaunted and started to seek a purely mechanical demonstration of the conversion of work into heat. By forcing water through a perforated cylinder, he could measure the slight

viscous The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the in ...

heating of the fluid. He obtained a mechanical equivalent of . The fact that the values obtained both by electrical and purely mechanical means were in agreement to at least one

order of magnitude An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic di ...

was, to Joule, compelling evidence of the reality of the convertibility of work into heat. Joule now tried a third route. He measured the heat generated against the work done in compressing a gas. He obtained a mechanical equivalent of . In many ways, this experiment offered the easiest target for Joule's critics but Joule disposed of the anticipated objections by clever experimentation. Joule read his paper to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

on 20 June 1844, but his paper was rejected for publication by the Royal Society and he had to be content with publishing in the ''

Philosophical Magazine The ''Philosophical Magazine'' is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. It was established by Alexander Tilloch in 1798;John Burnett"Tilloch, Alexander (1759–1825)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Univer ...

'' in 1845. In the paper he was forthright in his rejection of the caloric reasoning of Carnot and Émile Clapeyron, a rejection partly

theologically Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

driven: Joule here adopts the language of ''vis viva'' (energy), possibly because Hodgkinson had read a review of Ewart's ''On the measure of moving force'' to the Literary and Philosophical Society in April 1844. Joule wrote in his 1844 paper: In June 1845, Joule read his paper ''On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat'' to the British Association meeting in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. In this work, he reported his best-known experiment, involving the use of a falling weight, in which gravity does the mechanical work, to spin a

paddle wheel A paddle wheel is a form of waterwheel or impeller in which a number of paddles are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several uses, of which some are: * Very low-lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than a ...

in an insulated barrel of water which increased the temperature. He now estimated a mechanical equivalent of . He wrote a letter to the Philosophical Magazine, published in September 1845 describing his experiment. In 1850, Joule published a refined measurement of , closer to twentieth century estimates.

Reception and priority

Much of the initial resistance to Joule's work stemmed from its dependence upon extremely

precise Precision, precise or precisely may refer to: Science, and technology, and mathematics Mathematics and computing (general) * Accuracy and precision, measurement deviation from true value and its scatter * Significant figures, the number of digit ...

measurement Measurement is the quantification of attributes of an object or event, which can be used to compare with other objects or events. In other words, measurement is a process of determining how large or small a physical quantity is as compared ...

s. He claimed to be able to measure temperatures to within of a degree Fahrenheit (3 mK). Such precision was certainly uncommon in contemporary experimental physics but his doubters may have neglected his experience in the art of brewing and his access to its practical technologies. He was also ably supported by

scientific instrument A scientific instrument is a device or tool used for scientific purposes, including the study of both natural phenomena and theoretical research. History Historically, the definition of a scientific instrument has varied, based on usage, laws, a ...

-maker John Benjamin Dancer. Joule's experiments complemented the theoretical work of

Rudolf Clausius Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's princip ...

, who is considered by some to be the coinventor of the energy concept. Joule was proposing a kinetic theory of heat (he believed it to be a form of rotational, rather than translational,

kinetic energy In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acce ...

), and this required a conceptual leap: if heat was a form of molecular motion, why didn't the motion of the molecules gradually die out? Joule's ideas required one to believe that the collisions of molecules were perfectly elastic. Importantly, the very existence of

atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, a ...

s and

molecule A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and b ...

s was not widely accepted for another 50 years. Although it may be hard today to understand the allure of the

, at the time it seemed to have some clear advantages. Carnot's successful theory of heat engines had also been based on the caloric assumption, and only later was it proved by Lord Kelvin that Carnot's mathematics were equally valid without assuming a caloric fluid. However, in Germany, Hermann Helmholtz became aware both of Joule's work and the similar 1842 work of Julius Robert von Mayer. Though both men had been neglected since their respective publications, Helmholtz's definitive 1847 declaration of the

conservation of energy In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be ''conserved'' over time. This law, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet, means tha ...

credited them both. Also in 1847, another of Joule's presentations at the British Association in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

was attended by George Gabriel Stokes,

Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...

, and the precocious and maverick William Thomson, later to become Lord Kelvin, who had just been appointed professor of

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancien ...

at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. Stokes was "inclined to be a Joulite" and Faraday was "much struck with it" though he harboured doubts. Thomson was intrigued but sceptical. Unanticipated, Thomson and Joule met later that year in

Chamonix Chamonix-Mont-Blanc ( frp, Chamôni), more commonly known as Chamonix, is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southeastern France. It was the site of the first Winter Olympics in 1924. In 2019, it had ...

. Joule married Amelia Grimes on 18 August and the couple went on honeymoon. Marital enthusiasm notwithstanding, Joule and Thomson arranged to attempt an experiment a few days later to measure the temperature difference between the top and bottom of the Cascade de Sallanches waterfall, though this subsequently proved impractical. Though Thomson felt that Joule's results demanded theoretical explanation, he retreated into a spirited defence of the Carnot- Clapeyron school. In his 1848 account of

absolute temperature Thermodynamic temperature is a quantity defined in thermodynamics as distinct from kinetic theory or statistical mechanics. Historically, thermodynamic temperature was defined by Kelvin in terms of a macroscopic relation between thermodynamic ...

, Thomson wrote that "the conversion of heat (or caloric) into mechanical effect is probably impossible, certainly undiscovered" – but a footnote signalled his first doubts about the caloric theory, referring to Joule's "very remarkable discoveries". Surprisingly, Thomson did not send Joule a copy of his paper but when Joule eventually read it he wrote to Thomson on 6 October, claiming that his studies had demonstrated conversion of heat into work but that he was planning further experiments. Thomson replied on the 27th, revealing that he was planning his own experiments and hoping for a reconciliation of their two views. Though Thomson conducted no new experiments, over the next two years he became increasingly dissatisfied with Carnot's theory and convinced of Joule's. In his 1851 paper, Thomson was willing to go no further than a compromise and declared "the whole theory of the motive power of heat is founded on two propositions, due respectively to Joule, and to Carnot and Clausius". As soon as Joule read the paper he wrote to Thomson with his comments and questions. Thus began a fruitful, though largely epistolary, collaboration between the two men, Joule conducting experiments, Thomson analysing the results and suggesting further experiments. The collaboration lasted from 1852 to 1856, its discoveries including the

Joule–Thomson effect In thermodynamics, the Joule–Thomson effect (also known as the Joule–Kelvin effect or Kelvin–Joule effect) describes the temperature change of a ''real'' gas or liquid (as differentiated from an ideal gas) when it is forced through a valv ...

, and the published results did much to bring about general acceptance of Joule's work and the kinetic theory.

Kinetic theory

Kinetics is the science of motion. Joule was a pupil of Dalton and it is no surprise that he had learned a firm belief in the

atomic theory Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. Atomic theory traces its origins to an ancient philosophical tradition known as atomism. According to this idea, if one were to take a lump of matter ...

, even though there were many scientists of his time who were still skeptical. He had also been one of the few people receptive to the neglected work of

John Herapath John Herapath (30 May 1790 – 24 February 1868) was an English physicist who gave a partial account of the kinetic theory of gases in 1820 though it was neglected by the scientific community at the time. He was the cousin of William Herapath, t ...

on the

kinetic theory of gases Kinetic (Ancient Greek: κίνησις “kinesis”, movement or to move) may refer to: * Kinetic theory, describing a gas as particles in random motion * Kinetic energy, the energy of an object that it possesses due to its motion Art and ent ...

. He was further profoundly influenced by Peter Ewart's 1813 paper ''On the measure of moving force''. Joule perceived the relationship between his discoveries and the kinetic theory of heat. His laboratory notebooks reveal that he believed heat to be a form of rotational, rather than translational motion. Joule could not resist finding antecedents of his views in

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

, Sir

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, Theology, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosophy, natural philosopher"), widely ...

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of ...

, Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) and Sir

Humphry Davy Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, (17 December 177829 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for ...

. Though such views are justified, Joule went on to estimate a value for the mechanical equivalent of heat of 1,034 foot-pound from Rumford's publications. Some modern writers have criticised this approach on the grounds that Rumford's experiments in no way represented systematic quantitative measurements. In one of his personal notes, Joule contends that Mayer's measurement was no more accurate than Rumford's, perhaps in the hope that Mayer had not anticipated his own work. Joule has been attributed with explaining the sunset green flash phenomenon in a letter to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1869; actually, he merely noted (with a sketch) the last glimpse as bluish green, without attempting to explain the cause of the phenomenon.

Published work

* * * * * * * * * File:Joule-1.jpg, Volumes I and II of "The Scientific Papers" File:Joule-3.jpg, Title page of volume I of "The Scientific Papers" File:Joule-4.jpg, Preface to volume I of "The Scientific Papers" File:Joule-5.jpg, Figure from volume I of "The Scientific Papers"

Honours

Joule died at home in Sale and is buried in

Brooklands Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields ...

cemetery there. His gravestone is inscribed with the number "772.55", his climacteric 1878 measurement of the mechanical equivalent of heat, in which he found that this amount of foot-pounds of work must be expended at sea level to raise the temperature of one pound of water from to . There is also a quotation from the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

: "I must work the work of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work". The Wetherspoon's pub in Sale, the town of his death, is named "The J. P. Joule" after him. Joule's many honours and commendations include: *Fellow of the

(1850) **

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...

(1852), 'For his paper on the mechanical equivalent of heat, printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1850' **

Copley Medal The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...

(1870), 'For his experimental researches on the dynamical theory of heat' *President of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (1860) *President of the

(1872, 1887) *Honorary Membership of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (1857) *Honorary degrees: ** LL.D.,

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

(1857) ** DCL,

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

(1860) **LL.D.,

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...

(1871) *Joule received a

civil list A civil list is a list of individuals to whom money is paid by the government, typically for service to the state or as honorary pensions. It is a term especially associated with the United Kingdom and its former colonies of Canada, India, New Zeal ...

pension of £200 ''per annum'' in 1878 for services to science * Albert Medal of the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

(1880), 'for having established, after most laborious research, the true relation between heat, electricity and mechanical work, thus affording to the engineer a sure guide in the application of science to industrial pursuits' There is a memorial to Joule in the north choir aisle of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

, though he is not buried there, contrary to what some biographies state. A statue of Joule by Alfred Gilbert stands in

Manchester Town Hall Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments. The building faces Albert Square to ...

, opposite that of Dalton.

Family

In 1847, Joule married Amelia Grimes. Joule became a widower when she died in 1854, 7 years after their wedding. They had three children together: a son, Benjamin Arthur Joule (1850–1922), a daughter, Alice Amelia (1852–1899) and a second son, Joe (born 1854, who died three weeks later) Alice had grown to be a beautiful girl like her mother. Benjamin became strong like his father. Joule was proud of Alice and Benjamin. When James had died in 1889-Alice and Benjamin were devastated. 10 years later Alice had died Benjamin had been alone until he found a perfect wife which he married and died 1922.

References

Footnotes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * *

External links

*
The scientific papers of James Prescott Joule (1884)
– annotated by Joule
The joint scientific papers of James Prescott Joule (1887)
– annotated by Joule

''On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat'' and ''On the Existence of an Equivalent Relation between Heat and the ordinary Forms of Mechanical Power''
Joule's water friction apparatus
at London Science Museum *
Some Remarks on Heat and the Constitution of Elastic Fluids
', Joule's 1851 estimate of the speed of a gas molecule
Joule Manuscripts
at John Rylands Library, Manchester.
University of Manchester material on Joule
– includes photographs of Joule's house and gravesite
Joule Physics Laboratory
at the

University of Salford , caption = Coat of ArmsUniversity of Salford , mottoeng = "Let us seek higher things" , established = 1850 - Pendleton Mechanics Institute 1896 – Royal Technical Institute, Salford 1967 – gained ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joule, James Prescott 1818 births 1889 deaths 19th-century British physicists English physicists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Fluid dynamicists History of Greater Manchester People associated with electricity People associated with energy People from Salford Recipients of the Copley Medal Royal Medal winners Thermodynamicists Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society