CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS London: FETTER LANE, E.C. Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO. Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. All rights reserved AND PHYSICAL PAPERS VOLUME V THERMODYNAMICS COSMICAL AND GEOLOGICAL PHYSICS ELECTRODYNAMICS BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR WILLIAM THOMSON, BARON KELVIN O.M., P.C., G.C.V.O., LL.D., D.C.L., SC.D., M.D., ... PAST PRES. R.S., FOR. ASSOC. INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, GRAND OFFICER OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR, KT PRUSSIAN ORDER POUR LE MÉRITE, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW FELLOW OF ST PETER'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ARRANGED AND REVISED WITH BRIEF ANNOTATIONS BY SIR JOSEPH LARMOR, D.Sc., LL.D., SEC. R.S. LUCASIAN PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN PARLIAMENT CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1911 IT PREFACE T had been intended that the present volume should complete the collected edition of Lord Kelvin's Scientific Papers. It was soon found, however, that extensive omissions would be necessary in order to compress the remaining papers into this space; and eventually it was decided to run on into a sixth volume, on the ground that material of inferior direct importance would be valuable to the historical student in obtaining a view of the progress of knowledge. Thus it is mainly on this ground that the sub-section headed "Electrical Contributions to Engineering Societies," pp. 541-595, consisting largely of excerpts from the reported discussions at the "Society of Telegraph Engineers," now the "Institution of Electrical Engineers," has been included in the reprint. There remain over for the sixth volume the later papers on Electrionic Theory and Radio-activity, including cognate papers of the same period on Voltaic Phenomena, and also some supplementary matter. The present volume begins with a section on Thermodynamics in the wider sense of that term. It has been thought desirable to reprint some material, in part controversial (cf. pp. 1-10, and 38-46), which Lord Kelvin had himself omitted in its own earlier connexion. Looking back, we can now recognize that there is ample room for all the illustrious names which are associated with the historical development of this subject, and that their independent efforts, when placed in full light of comparison, give a richer texture and a more human interest to the great fundamental advance in our outlook upon nature with which they were concerned. |