Lord Kelvin, better known as Sir William Thompson (b. Belfast 1824,
d. 1907), F.R.S. Amongst the greatest physicists who have ever lived,
his name comes second only to that of Newton. He was educated at
Cambridge, became professor of natural philosophy in Glasgow
University in 1846, and celebrated the jubilee of his appointment in
1896. To the public his greatest achievement was the electric cabling
of the Atlantic Ocean, for which he was knighted in 1866. His
electrometers and electric meters, his sounding apparatus, and his
mariners' compass are all well-known and highly valued instruments.
To his scientific fellows, however, his greatest achievements were in
the field of pure science, especially in connection with his
thermodynamic researches, including the doctrine of the dissipation
or degradation of energy. To this brief statement may be added
mention of his work in connection with hydrodynamics and his magnetic
and electric discoveries. His papers in connection with wave and
vortex movements are also most remarkable. He was awarded the Royal
and Copley medals and was an original member of the Order of Merit.
He received distinctions from many universities and learned
societies.
George Francis Fitzgerald (b. Dublin 1851, d. 1901), F.R.S., was
fellow and professor of natural philosophy in Trinity College,
Dublin, where he was educated. He was the first person to call the
attention of the world to the importance of Hertz's experiment.
Perhaps his most important work, interrupted by his labors in
connection with education and terminated by his early death, was that
in connection with the nature of the ether.
George Johnston Stoney (b. King's Co. 1826, d. 1911), F.R.S., after
being astronomer at Parsonstown and professor of natural philosophy
at Galway, became secretary to the Queen's University and occupied
that position until the dissolution of the university in 1882. He
wrote many papers on geometrical optics and on molecular physics, but
his great claim to remembrance is that he first suggested, "on the
basis of Faraday's law of Electrolysis, that an absolute unit of
quantity of electricity exists in that amount of it which attends
each chemical bond or valency and gave the name, now generally
adopted, of electron to this small quantity." He proposed the
electronic theory of the origin of the complex ether vibrations which
proceed from a molecule emitting light.
John Tyndall (b. Leighlin Bridge, Co. Carlow, 1820, d. 1893), F.R.S.,
professor at the Royal Institution and a fellow-worker in many ways
with Huxley, especially on the subject of glaciers. He wrote also on
heat as a mode of motion and was the author of many scientific
papers, but will, perhaps, be best remembered as the author of a
Presidential Address to the British Association in Belfast (1874),
which was the highwater mark of the mid-Victorian materialism at its
most triumphant moment.