At the age of seventeen, when ordinary
lads are fond of games, and the cleverer sort are content to learn
without attempting to originate, young Thomson had begun to make
investigations. The CAMBRIDGE MATHEMATICAL JOURNAL of 1842 contains a
paper by him--'On the uniform motion of heat in homogeneous solid
bodies, and its connection with the mathematical theory of electricity.'
In this he demonstrated the identity of the laws governing the
distribution of electric or magnetic force in general, with the laws
governing the distribution of the lines of the motion of heat in certain
special cases. The paper was followed by others on the mathematical
theory of electricity; and in 1845 he gave the first mathematical
development of Faraday's notion, that electric induction takes place
through an intervening medium, or 'dielectric,' and not by some
incomprehensible 'action at a distance.' He also devised an hypothesis
of electrical images, which became a powerful agent in solving problems
of electrostatics, or the science which deals with the forces of
electricity at rest.
On gaining a fellowship at his college, he spent some time in the
laboratory of the celebrated Regnault, at Paris; but in 1846 he was
appointed to the chair of natural philosophy in the University of
Glasgow.
Pages:
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99