A GREAT SCIENTIST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 304, 28 December 1907, Page 4

A GREAT SCIENTIST.

CIIAKACTKI! SKCTl'll ()!•• TIJK I VI'K 1 J-OIiU KELVIX. Lord Kelvin, (lie eminent scientist )vho died l„ st week, was plain Wi11i,,,,, Ihonison ~( (l,e start, luvomiug better known years "afterwards to the scientilic world as Sir William Tliomsoii. J 1,, vaiue of a nice of sturdy Uster or Scotch-Irish larniors. ami wan horn 2olh •'ii'i'S in Belfast. Hut when hwas eight years old, or in 1832. the family removed to Clasgow, tile father, ■lames Thomson, having been appointed a professor of mathematics in (he university. There ]„, m . (l j V( , (] r ,. nm | lis lather a thorough education, cnterim; of learning when but a child, gaining, among other honor*, the first prizes in the junior and senior mathematical classes. He won in IMS a university |,ri zi . f„,. an essay on ■'The figure ol the ICartli," and in ls:j!l, when "illy l.», he went to Cambridge, graduating there in 18-15 as second senior wrangler and winning the highest liialliemailea] honor. From Cambridge lie" went to I'iins and studied for a" time voider licgnaull. His activity from the outset was marvel s. As a boy he was able to do what Ihe most accomplished men eould not. To him fell many prizes before he left Cambridge, and he bean writing and publishing papers that'"attracted wide attention while Ife was vet mi undergraduate. As he began so'he continued, a man of vast vitality, intellectual and physical. lie was th.' gioatest living scientific man of the the day—a physicist, an electrician, a mathematician, a varied and successful inventor, a great teacher, an unexcelled expounder of popular science, and besides that a great many other things. He was even a money-maker as „i'i cleetrieal expert, and by means of his numerous inventions, though he hail not -.ought after gain, and while a collce professor, contrary to what is u.-ual wiMi that class, had his eonntrv houses and Ins yachts, and was able by his acquire i wealth to sustain the burdens of a peerage. As a youth he was an athlete, won the Colipihoun sculls, rowed in the "Varsity crew, and was president, of the Cambridge Musical Society. .Moreover, he was something of a politician, an ardent t'nionisl. and it is whispered that his political views had something to do with his being made a lord. Professor Thomson became Sir William Thomson because of his imllngrin<» interest in the first Atlantic cable. "lie was electrician on the Agamemnon when the cable was laid, and, by means of delicate interests of his device, the firs; message under the sea was sent. After four hundred such communications tic cable gave out, but the faith of the enthusiastic professor never wavered. In ISfili the flreat Eastern laid the new line, and the croakers were for ever silenced: and for this the seer, true to the scientific vision which had never faded from his eye, was knighted. Then lomafterwards, in 1801, he was made pre" sident of the Royal Society. Tn the same year, he was elevated to the peerage, a distinction uniijue in the annals o! science. The list of highest honors conferred upon him by foreign liovernmeiits is a long one. " The ground for all tin, distinction bestowed cannot be detailed here. The doctrine of the conversation of energy Lord Kelvin had had more to do in nutting into working shape than all the scientists together who have preceded him. The theory to-day o! ether, the medium of transmission of light and electricity throughout the realms of space, is of elaboration, ami Ins conception that what is called matter is merely vortices-whirligigs, as i. were-in this ether, is one of the most tar-reaching, giving promise of Lciii" most fruitful of all the speculation evolved in connection with modern phy. -as. Hut the scientist in this instance is not mainly one of a speculative mind; ho is intensely interested in speculation that can be made to ft'ork; in short i< a practical man. When Lord Kelvin in isuu celebrated his jubilee as a professor in tdas-ow Cniver.sity, his student., gathered about 1,1,11 lr,,m "early every corner of th ■ world, and the representatives of scienline societies then present made as distinguished a company of learned men as ever was collected in the eartli to Jo honor to one man. He was three times I married. Practically up to the dav of his death he was extraordinarily hale [ and vigorous, unsurpassed in attainments, uniijue among scientilic workers a marvel of man.