Lord Kelvin

I had never thought of such a possibility before.

He showed me by calculations on paper, which Lord Kelvin, no doubt, or Professor Lodge, or Professor Carl Pearson, or any of those great scientific people might have understood, but which simply reduced me to a hopeless muddle, that not only was such a substance possible, but that it must satisfy certain conditions.

It was an amazing piece of reasoning.

Much as it amazed and exercised me at the time, it would be impossible to reproduce it here.

It does not exist.

A Lord Kelvin and a Mrs. Eddy and something not to their liking.

It does not exist.

Of course not, we intermediates say, but also that, in intermediateness, neither is there absolute non-existence.

In my own tendency to exclude, or in the attitude of one peasant or savage who thinks he is not to be classed with other peasants or savages, I am not very much impressed with what natives think.

It would be hard to tell why.

If the word of a Lord Kelvin carries no more weight upon a scientific subject than the word of a Sitting Bull, unless it be in agreement with conventional opinion, I think it must be because savages have bad table manners.

However, my snobbishness in this respect loosens up somewhat before very widespread beliefs by savages and peasants, and the notion of thunderstones is as wide as geography itself.

From many other considerations it appeared desirable to invent a simpler device for the production of electric oscillations.

In 1856 Lord Kelvin had exposed the theory of the condenser discharge, but no practical application of that important knowledge was made.

I saw the possibilities and undertook the development of induction apparatus on this principle.

My progress was so rapid as to enable me to exhibit at my lecture in 1891 a coil giving sparks of five inches.

He stated unhesitatingly that it was practicable, provided I could perfect apparatus capable of putting it into effect, but this, he anticipated, would be extremely difficult to accomplish.

I resumed the work very much encouraged, and from that date to 1896 advanced slowly but steadily, making a number of improvements, the chief of which was my system of concatenated tuned circuits and method of regulation, now universally adopted.

In the summer of 1897, Lord Kelvin happened to pass through New York and honored me by a visit to my laboratory, where I entertained him with demonstrations in support of my wireless theory.

He was fairly carried away with what he saw, but nevertheless condemned my project in emphatic terms, qualifying it as something impossible, an illusion and a snare.

The electrical storage battery, compressed air, and other agencies which will be referred to later on have now supplied this want of the windmill builder, but in the meantime his trade has been to a large extent destroyed.

For its revival there is no doubt that, as Lord Kelvin remarked in the address already quoted, the little thing wanted to let the thing be done is cheap windmills.

This, however, leads to another part of the problem.

The costliness of the best modern patterns of windmill, as now so extensively used, particularly in America, is mainly due to the elaborate and on the whole successful attempts at minimizing the objection of the intermittent nature of the source of power.

Glasgow's peculiar claim to regard lies in the perfect equality of the various schools, the humanities not neglected, the sciences appreciated, neither accorded precedence.

Its scientific professor, Thompson, now Lord Kelvin, was recently elevated to the Lord Chancellorship, the highest honor in its power to bestow.

Every important university develops special qualities of its own, for which it is noted.

That of Glasgow is renowned for devotion to the scientific field.

First to establish a chemical teaching laboratory for students.

First to have a physical laboratory for the exercise and instruction of students in experimental work.

Nursery from which came the steam engine of Watt, the discovery of latent heat by its professor Black, and the successful operation of telegraph cables by its professor and present Lord Chancellor, Lord Kelvin.

May the future of Glasgow University copy fair her glorious past.

But there was a gleam of hope of which the general public as yet knew nothing.

It was due to a few dauntless men of science, conspicuous among whom were Lord Kelvin, the great English savant, Herr Rontgen, the discoverer of the famous X-ray, and especially Thomas A. Edison, the American genius of science.

These men and a few others had examined with the utmost care the engines of war, the flying machines, the generators of mysterious destructive forces that the Martians had produced, with the object of discovering, if possible, the sources of their power.

Suddenly, from Mr. Edison's laboratory at Orange flashed the startling intelligence that he had not only discovered the manner in which the invaders had been able to produce the mighty energies which they employed with such terrible effect, but that going further, he had found a way to overcome them.

Mr. Edison smiled.

Edison to the rescue.

I can explain its details, he said to Lord Kelvin for instance, but if their majesties will excuse me, I doubt whether I can make it plain to the crowned heads.

The Emperor William smiled superciliously.

The electrical storage battery, compressed air, and other agencies which will be referred to later on have now supplied this want of the windmill builder, but in the meantime his trade has been to a large extent destroyed.

For its revival, there is no doubt that, as Lord Kelvin remarked in the address already quoted, the little thing wanted to let the thing be done is cheap windmills.

This, however, leads to another part of the problem.

The costliness of the best modern patterns of windmill, as now so extensively used, particularly in America, is mainly due to the elaborate and on the whole successful attempts at minimizing the objection of the intermittent nature of the source of power.

Moreover, in the case of a number of such wheels set on a long axis one behind the other as described, the space within which the shelter of the front sail is operative to keep the wind from driving the next one is exceedingly minute.

The elasticity of the air and its frictional inertia when running in the form of wind cause the current to proceed on its course after a very slight check, which in point of time is momentary and in its effect almost infinitesimal.

This being the case, and the principal expense attendant upon the construction of ordinary wind engines being due to the need for providing a large diameter of wind wheel with all the attendant complications required to secure such a wheel from risk, it is obvious that as soon as the long axis and the very short sail or the metallic spiral have been generally introduced as adjuncts to the dynamo storage battery, an era of cheaper wind motors will have been entered upon, in fact the little want of which Lord Kelvin spoke in 1881 will have been supplied.

The high speed which the dynamo requires and the more rapid rate at which windmills constructed on this very economical principle must necessarily run both mark the two classes of apparatus as being eminently suited for mutual assistance in future usefulness.

If today a Brunetier, without fear of contradiction, can proclaim science bankrupt, it is in a great measure because Leo's encyclical on the study of St. Thomas and scholastic philosophy inspired Catholic scientists, and through their influence, non-Catholic scientists as well, to study both theology and science more ardently, systematically, and conservatively, and with such success in reconciling their apparent disagreements that the best scientists of our day recognize how each is but a study from a different aspect of the same great first cause and its effects, and that each must necessarily, therefore, be in accord with the other.

Lord Kelvin's words, Science positively affirms creative power.

We are absolutely forced by science to believe with perfect confidence in a directive power, and his further assertion, If you think strong enough, you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion.

You will find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion, are but a re-echo of Leo's utterances a quarter of a century ago.