The Cambridge University Musical Society (CUMS) is a federation of the university's main orchestral and choral ensembles, which cumulatively put on a substantial concert season during the university term.
87-649: In 1843 the Cambridge University Musical Society (CUMS) was established, and was originally called the Peterhouse Musical Society as most of its members were originally undergraduates from that college. The founders of CUMS included John Bacchus Dykes , William Thomson and John A. L. Airey. Many respected musical figures have directed the Cambridge University Musical Society, including the following: Students wishing to join an orchestra are required to audition at
174-797: A 126-ton schooner , the Lalla Rookh and used it as a base for entertaining friends and scientific colleagues. His maritime interests continued in 1871 when he was appointed to the Board of Enquiry into the sinking of HMS Captain . In June 1873, Thomson and Jenkin were on board the Hooper , bound for Lisbon with 2,500 miles (4,020 km) of cable when the cable developed a fault. An unscheduled 16-day stop-over in Madeira followed, and Thomson became good friends with Charles R. Blandy and his three daughters. On 2 May 1874 he set sail for Madeira on
261-426: A copy of his paper, but when Joule eventually read it he wrote to Thomson on 6 October, claiming that his studies had demonstrated conversion of heat into work but that he was planning further experiments. Thomson replied on 27 October, revealing that he was planning his own experiments and hoping for a reconciliation of their two sides. Thomson returned to critique Carnot's original publication and read his analysis to
348-545: A curate, for his expanding parish. Peake was an Oxford graduate, ordained priest in 1872, who had been a curate in Hull and then had moved to Houghton le Spring . Dykes had a positive recommendation for Peake from the Rev. Francis Richard Grey. Grey, Rector of Morpeth, Northumberland , signed the 1873 "Declaration on Confession and Absolution", put together by Edward Bouverie Pusey . Baring refused to license Peake: while St Oswald's
435-472: A few years earlier. He shares a grave with his youngest daughter, Mabel, who died, aged 10, of scarlet fever in 1870. Dykes's grave is now the only marked grave in what, in recent years, has been transformed into a children's playground. Dykes has been called "perhaps the most significant High Church composer in the Victorian Church of England". This standing was despite his main efforts being as
522-481: A form of the second law: It is impossible, by means of inanimate material agency, to derive mechanical effect from any portion of matter by cooling it below the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects. In the paper, Thomson supports the theory that heat was a form of motion but admits that he had been influenced only by the thought of Sir Humphry Davy and the experiments of Joule and Julius Robert von Mayer , maintaining that experimental demonstration of
609-420: A local circulation; the Rev. John Grey (1812–1895) was a canon of Durham Cathedral, and brother of the Rev. Francis Richard Grey. More significant was his speculative submission in 1860 of tunes to the music editor William Henry Monk of a new venture, Hymns Ancient and Modern . They were: Other tunes which achieved acclaim include: "St Alban", based on the slow movement of Symphony No. 53 by Haydn ,
696-658: A parish priest in the Tractarian tradition, rather than as a musician. He is best known for over 300 hymn tunes he composed. Of these, many were commissioned from him. Tractarian leaders of the 1830s, influenced by the Roman Breviary and its medieval hymns in Latin, argued that hymns were just as characteristic of the Catholic tradition as of the evangelical. Up to the middle of the 19th century, words of hymns and
783-514: A scale would be "quite independent of the physical properties of any specific substance." By employing such a "waterfall", Thomson postulated that a point would be reached at which no further heat (caloric) could be transferred, the point of absolute zero about which Guillaume Amontons had speculated in 1702. "Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat", published by Carnot in French in 1824,
870-426: A third, more substantial P.Q.R. paper On the uniform motion of heat in homogeneous solid bodies, and its connection with the mathematical theory of electricity . In the paper he made remarkable connections between the mathematical theories of thermal conduction and electrostatics , an analogy that James Clerk Maxwell was ultimately to describe as one of the most valuable science-forming ideas . William's father
957-524: A whole the reverse of concentration is gradually going on – I believe that no physical action can ever restore the heat emitted from the Sun, and that this source is not inexhaustible; also that the motions of the Earth and other planets are losing vis viva which is converted into heat; and that although some vis viva may be restored for instance to the earth by heat received from the sun, or by other means, that
SECTION 10
#17327724028661044-536: Is my shepherd — numerous small scale anthems and motets; Communion, Morning and Evening Services; and a setting of the words of the Burial Service. These work are now rarely played. He also wrote a single piece — Andantino — for organ solo. Dykes also published sermons, book reviews and articles on theology and church music, many of them in the Ecclesiastic and Theologian . These cover the topics of
1131-415: Is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science , whatever the matter may be. Though eminent in the academic field, Thomson was obscure to the general public. In September 1852, he married childhood sweetheart Margaret Crum, daughter of Walter Crum ; but her health broke down on their honeymoon, and over
1218-535: The Great Eastern . Thomson introduced a new method of deep-sea depth sounding , in which a steel piano wire replaces the ordinary hand line. The wire glides so easily to the bottom that "flying soundings" can be taken while the ship is at full speed. Thomson added a pressure gauge to register the depth of the sinker. About the same time he revived the Sumner method of finding a ship's position, and calculated
1305-624: The British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Oxford . At that meeting, he heard James Prescott Joule making yet another of his, so far, ineffective attempts to discredit the caloric theory of heat and the theory of the heat engine built upon it by Sadi Carnot and Émile Clapeyron . Joule argued for the mutual convertibility of heat and mechanical work and for their mechanical equivalence. Thomson
1392-617: The County of Ayr . The title refers to the River Kelvin , which flows near his laboratory at the University of Glasgow's Gilmorehill home at Hillhead . Despite offers of elevated posts from several world-renowned universities, Kelvin refused to leave Glasgow, remaining until his retirement from that post in 1899. Active in industrial research and development, he was recruited around 1899 by George Eastman to serve as vice-chairman of
1479-524: The Lalla Rookh . As he approached the harbour, he signalled to the Blandy residence "Will you marry me?" and Fanny (Blandy's daughter Frances Anna Blandy) signalled back "Yes". Thomson married Fanny, 13 years his junior, on 24 June 1874. Over the period 1855 to 1867, Thomson collaborated with Peter Guthrie Tait on a textbook that founded the study of mechanics first on the mathematics of kinematics ,
1566-621: The River Hull in 1815. Dikes, King & Co. launched the Zoroaster at Hull in 1818. By the age of 10, John Bacchus Dikes played the organ at St John's Church in Myton, Hull, where his paternal grandfather (who had built the church) was vicar and his uncle (also Thomas) was organist. He was taught by the Hull organist George Skelton. He also played the violin and the piano. He studied first at Kingston College, Hull. William Hey Dikes
1653-689: The Royal Society of Edinburgh in January 1849, still convinced that the theory was fundamentally sound. However, though Thomson conducted no new experiments, over the next two years he became increasingly dissatisfied with Carnot's theory and convinced of Joule's. In February 1851 he sat down to articulate his new thinking. He was uncertain of how to frame his theory, and the paper went through several drafts before he settled on an attempt to reconcile Carnot and Joule. During his rewriting, he seems to have considered ideas that would subsequently give rise to
1740-521: The University of Glasgow , not out of any precociousness; the university provided many of the facilities of an elementary school for able pupils, and this was a typical starting age. In school, he showed a keen interest in the classics along with his natural interest in the sciences. At age 12 he won a prize for translating Lucian of Samosata's Dialogues of the Gods from Ancient Greek to English. In
1827-458: The heat death paradox (Kelvin's paradox) in 1862, which uses the second law of thermodynamics to disprove the possibility of an infinitely old universe; this paradox was later extended by William Rankine . In final publication, Thomson retreated from a radical departure and declared "the whole theory of the motive power of heat is founded on ... two ... propositions, due respectively to Joule, and to Carnot and Clausius." Thomson went on to state
SECTION 20
#17327724028661914-425: The second law of thermodynamics . In Carnot's theory, lost heat was absolutely lost, but Thomson contended that it was " lost to man irrecoverably; but not lost in the material world". Moreover, his theological beliefs led Thomson to extrapolate the second law to the cosmos, originating the idea of universal heat death . I believe the tendency in the material world is for motion to become diffused, and that as
2001-402: The transatlantic telegraph project , he was knighted in 1866 by Queen Victoria , becoming Sir William Thomson. He had extensive maritime interests and worked on the mariner's compass , which previously had limited reliability. Kelvin was ennobled in 1892 in recognition of his achievements in thermodynamics, and of his opposition to Irish Home Rule , becoming Baron Kelvin, of Largs in
2088-611: The "continental" mathematics resisted by a British establishment still working in the shadow of Sir Isaac Newton . Unsurprisingly, Fourier's work had been attacked by domestic mathematicians, Philip Kelland authoring a critical book. The book motivated Thomson to write his first published scientific paper under the pseudonym P.Q.R. , defending Fourier, which was submitted to The Cambridge Mathematical Journal by his father. A second P.Q.R. paper followed almost immediately. While on holiday with his family in Lamlash in 1841, he wrote
2175-511: The Apocalypse, the Psalms, Biblical numerology and the function of music and ritual in church services. In 2017 a plaque commemorating Dykes was installed in the antechapel of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he had been an undergraduate in the 1840s. In editing The English Hymnal (1906), Ralph Vaughan Williams "was ruthless in his treatment of Dykes", whose tunes included in
2262-568: The CUMS family. Run by students. John Bacchus Dykes John Bacchus Dykes (10 March 1823 – 22 January 1876) was an English clergyman and hymnwriter . He was born in Hull , England, the fifth child and third son of William Hey Dikes or Dykes, a ship builder, and Elizabeth, daughter of Bacchus Huntington, a surgeon of Sculcoates , Yorkshire, and granddaughter of the Rev. William Huntington, Vicar of Kirk Ella . His paternal grandparents were
2349-470: The Carnot–Clapeyron theory further through his dissatisfaction that the gas thermometer provided only an operational definition of temperature. He proposed an absolute temperature scale in which "a unit of heat descending from a body A at the temperature T ° of this scale, to a body B at the temperature ( T −1)°, would give out the same mechanical effect [work] , whatever be the number T ." Such
2436-638: The Church of England was sharp. A test case concerned the Brighton-based Rev. John Purchas (1823–72) who, as a consequence of a Privy Council judgment which bore his name, was compelled to desist from such practices as facing east during the celebration of Holy Communion, using wafer bread, and wearing vestments other than cassock and surplice. The London-based Alexander Mackonochie saw his worship style characterised by Lord Shaftesbury as "in outward form and ritual…the worship of Jupiter or Juno"). He
2523-750: The Kelvin–Joule effect, and the published results did much to bring about general acceptance of Joule's work and the kinetic theory . Thomson published more than 650 scientific papers and applied for 70 patents (not all were issued). Regarding science, Thomson wrote the following: In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge
2610-479: The Rev. Thomas Dykes of Hull , and Mary, daughter of William Hey . He was also a cousin of the Rev. George Huntington . Dykes was a younger brother of the poet and hymnwriter Eliza Alderson , and wrote tunes for at least four of her hymns. William Hey Dikes in 1812 entered a shipbuilding partnership with William Barnes of Hull, Barnes, Dikes & King. They launched the Ferraby at their yard at Wincolmlee on
2697-427: The academic year 1839/1840, Thomson won the class prize in astronomy for his "Essay on the figure of the Earth" which showed an early facility for mathematical analysis and creativity. His physics tutor at this time was his namesake, David Thomson . Throughout his life, he would work on the problems raised in the essay as a coping strategy during times of personal stress. On the title page of this essay Thomson wrote
Cambridge University Musical Society - Misplaced Pages Continue
2784-631: The academic year. Conducted by the CUMS Conducting Scholar. The wind orchestra, conducted by the CUMS Assistant Conductor. The large choir, conducted by many well-known conductors over the years (see above). A small choir, consisting of the university's elite singers, directed by Martin Ennis and David Lowe. A series of lunchtime recitals, run by a committee of students, supported by CUMS. The newest addition to
2871-547: The access he was given unsatisfactory, and the Agamemnon had to return home following a disastrous storm in June 1858. In London, the board was about to abandon the project and mitigate their losses by selling the cable. Thomson, Cyrus West Field and Curtis M. Lampson argued for another attempt and prevailed, Thomson insisting that the technical problems were tractable. Though employed in an advisory capacity, Thomson had, during
2958-410: The adulation. Thomson, along with the other principals of the project, was knighted on 10 November 1866. To exploit his inventions for signalling on long submarine cables, Thomson entered into a partnership with C. F. Varley and Fleeming Jenkin . In conjunction with the latter, he also devised an automatic curb sender , a kind of telegraph key for sending messages on a cable. Thomson took part in
3045-652: The atmospheric electric field. Thomson's water dropper electrometer was used for measuring the atmospheric electric field at Kew Observatory and Eskdalemuir Observatory for many years, and one was still in use operationally at the Kakioka Observatory in Japan until early 2021. Thomson may have unwittingly observed atmospheric electrical effects caused by the Carrington event (a significant geomagnetic storm) in early September 1859. Between 1870 and 1890
3132-645: The attention of the project's undertakers. In December 1856, he was elected to the board of directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Thomson became scientific adviser to a team with Whitehouse as chief electrician and Sir Charles Tilston Bright as chief engineer, but Whitehouse had his way with the specification, supported by Faraday and Samuel F. B. Morse . Thomson sailed on board the cable-laying ship HMS Agamemnon in August 1857, with Whitehouse confined to land owing to illness, but
3219-452: The baseline of Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady 's New Version of the Psalms published at the end of the 17th century, and its four-square long metre tunes. Hutchings felt that "Victorian sentimentality" as applied to Dykes's tunes would be better described by adjectives such as "stodgy", "dramatic" and "vulgar". According to Dibble: "A … characteristic element of [Dykes’s] style is his use of imaginative diatonic and chromatic harmony. Dykes
3306-414: The beginning of the academic year. One audition is required for all ensembles, and based on your abilities and preferences, you are allocated a position. Competition for places is variable depending on instrument. Selection is purely on merit, and irrespective of age, standing in the university, or subject being read. At least half, if not more, of the ensembles are made up of students who do not read music at
3393-671: The board of the British company Kodak Limited, affiliated with Eastman Kodak . In 1904 he became chancellor of the University of Glasgow . Kelvin resided in Netherhall, a redstone mansion in Largs , which he built in the 1870s and where he died in 1907. The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow has a permanent exhibition on the work of Kelvin, which includes many of his original papers, instruments, and other artefacts, including his smoking pipe. Thomson's father, James Thomson ,
3480-476: The board that using purer copper for replacing the lost section of cable would improve data capacity, that he first made a difference to the execution of the project. The board insisted that Thomson join the 1858 cable-laying expedition, without any financial compensation, and take an active part in the project. In return, Thomson secured a trial for his mirror galvanometer, which the board had been unenthusiastic about, alongside Whitehouse's equipment. Thomson found
3567-683: The boys were tutored in French in Paris. Much of Thomson's life during the mid-1840s was spent in Germany and the Netherlands . Language study was given a high priority. His sister, Anna Thomson, was the mother of physicist James Thomson Bottomley FRSE. Thomson attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, where his father was a professor in the university department. In 1834, aged 10, he began studying at
Cambridge University Musical Society - Misplaced Pages Continue
3654-518: The bracing Swiss air proving unavailing, Dykes went to recover on the south coast of England. Dykes was admitted to a lunatic asylum, Ticehurst House in East Sussex, and died on 22 January 1876, aged 52. Fowler's assertion that he died at St Leonards on Sea , some 18 miles from Ticehurst, may well be correct since Ticehurst House made periodic use of a guest house at St Leonards for holidays for some patients. Fowler's view that Dykes's ill-health
3741-446: The cable must be "abandoned as being practically and commercially impossible". Thomson attacked Whitehouse's contention in a letter to the popular Athenaeum magazine, pitching himself into the public eye. Thomson recommended a larger conductor with a larger cross section of insulation . He thought Whitehouse no fool and suspected that he might have the practical skill to make the existing design work. Thomson's work had attracted
3828-459: The cable-laying expedition of the SS ; Great Eastern , but the voyage was dogged by technical problems. The cable was lost after 1,200 miles (1,900 km) had been laid, and the project was abandoned. A further attempt in 1866 laid a new cable in two weeks, and then recovered and completed the 1865 cable. The enterprise was feted as a triumph by the public, and Thomson enjoyed a large share of
3915-444: The celebrated Henri Victor Regnault , at Paris; but in 1846 he was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy in the University of Glasgow. At age 22 he found himself wearing the gown of a professor in one of the oldest universities in the country and lecturing to the class of which he was a first year student a few years before. By 1847, Thomson had already gained a reputation as a precocious and maverick scientist when he attended
4002-492: The conversion of heat into work was still outstanding. As soon as Joule read the paper he wrote to Thomson with his comments and questions. Thus began a fruitful, though largely epistolary, collaboration between the two men, Joule conducting experiments, Thomson analysing the results and suggesting further experiments. The collaboration lasted from 1852 to 1856, its discoveries including the Joule–Thomson effect , sometimes called
4089-435: The description of motion without regard to force . The text developed dynamics in various areas but with constant attention to energy as a unifying principle. A second edition appeared in 1879, expanded to two separately bound parts. The textbook set a standard for early education in mathematical physics . Thomson made significant contributions to atmospheric electricity for the relatively short time for which he worked on
4176-429: The first mathematical development of Michael Faraday 's idea that electric induction takes place through an intervening medium, or " dielectric ", and not by some incomprehensible "action at a distance". He also devised the mathematical technique of electrical images, which became a powerful agent in solving problems of electrostatics , the science which deals with the forces between electrically charged bodies at rest. It
4263-506: The following lines from Alexander Pope 's " An Essay on Man ". These lines inspired Thomson to understand the natural world using the power and method of science: Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides; Go measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old Time, and regulate the sun; Thomson became intrigued with Joseph Fourier's Théorie analytique de la chaleur ( The Analytical Theory of Heat ) and committed himself to study
4350-545: The judge Sir Colin Blackburn refused to interfere in what he saw to be a matter of the Bishop's sole discretion. In 1874 Dykes published an open letter, criticising Baring's campaign against ritualistic practices. Dykes's failure to change Baring's stance was followed by a gradual deterioration in his physical and mental health. It necessitated absence (which was to prove permanent) from St Oswald's from March 1875. Rest and
4437-752: The laying of the French Atlantic submarine communications cable of 1869, and with Jenkin was engineer of the Western and Brazilian and Platino-Brazilian cables, assisted by vacation student James Alfred Ewing . He was present at the laying of the Pará to Pernambuco section of the Brazilian coast cables in 1873. Thomson's wife, Margaret, died on 17 June 1870, and he resolved to make changes in his life. Already addicted to seafaring, in September he purchased
SECTION 50
#17327724028664524-403: The lead of Thomson and Tait, the branch of topology called knot theory was developed. Thomson's initiative in this complex study that continues to inspire new mathematics has led to persistence of the topic in history of science . Thomson was an enthusiastic yachtsman, his interest in all things relating to the sea perhaps arising from, or fostered by, his experiences on the Agamemnon and
4611-445: The loss cannot be precisely compensated and I think it probable that it is under-compensated. Compensation would require a creative act or an act possessing similar power , resulting in a rejuvenating universe (as Thomson had previously compared universal heat death to a clock running slower and slower, although he was unsure whether it would eventually reach thermodynamic equilibrium and stop for ever ). Thomson also formulated
4698-419: The next 17 years Thomson was distracted by her suffering. On 16 October 1854, George Gabriel Stokes wrote to Thomson to try to re-interest him in work by asking his opinion on some experiments of Faraday on the proposed transatlantic telegraph cable . Faraday had demonstrated how the construction of a cable would limit the rate at which messages could be sent—in modern terms, the bandwidth . Thomson jumped at
4785-412: The problem and published his response that month. He expressed his results in terms of the data rate that could be achieved and the economic consequences in terms of the potential revenue of the transatlantic undertaking. In a further 1855 analysis, Thomson stressed the impact that the design of the cable would have on its profitability. Thomson contended that the signalling speed through a given cable
4872-673: The shadow of the Cathedral, where he remained until his death in 1876. Dykes was from an evangelical family background. He moved to an Anglo-Catholic position in the Church of England during his Cambridge years, and ultimately became a ritualist . He was in sympathy with the Oxford Movement . He was a member of the Society of the Holy Cross . At this period, antagonism between the evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings of
4959-465: The subject, around 1859. He developed several instruments for measuring the atmospheric electric field, using some of the electrometers he had initially developed for telegraph work, which he tested at Glasgow and whilst on holiday on Arran. His measurements on Arran were sufficiently rigorous and well-calibrated that they could be used to deduce air pollution from the Glasgow area, through its effects on
5046-528: The tunes to which they were sung were not necessarily closely identified: the words might be taken from one book, and the tune from another. Dykes stated that he composed a number of tunes specially for use in Durham Cathedral's Galilee Chapel; but the first of his tunes to have been published appeared in John Grey's Manual of Psalm and Hymn Tunes (Cleaver: London, 1857). This was a hymnal with
5133-527: The university. A full symphony orchestra, consisting of the university's elite instrumental musicians, most of whom either hold university instrumental awards or have been involved in nationally significant music making, particularly the National Youth Orchestra . The ensemble is conducted by professional conductors, such as Sir Mark Elder, Sir Roger Norrington, and John Wilson. The second symphony orchestra of CUMS, giving three concerts in
5220-555: The vortex atom theory, which purported that an atom was a vortex in the aether , was popular among British physicists and mathematicians. Thomson pioneered the theory, which was distinct from the 17th century vortex theory of René Descartes in that Thomson was thinking in terms of a unitary continuum theory, whereas Descartes was thinking in terms of three different types of matter, each relating respectively to emission, transmission, and reflection of light. About 60 scientific papers were written by approximately 25 scientists. Following
5307-457: The voyage ended after 380 miles (610 km) when the cable parted. Thomson contributed to the effort by publishing in the Engineer the whole theory of the stresses involved in the laying of a submarine communications cable , showing when the line is running out of the ship, at a constant speed in a uniform depth of water, it sinks in a slant or straight incline from the point where it enters
SECTION 60
#17327724028665394-425: The voyages, developed a real engineer's instincts and skill at practical problem-solving under pressure, often taking the lead in dealing with emergencies and being unafraid to assist in manual work. A cable was completed on 5 August. Thomson's fears were realised when Whitehouse's apparatus proved insufficiently sensitive and had to be replaced by Thomson's mirror galvanometer. Whitehouse continued to maintain that it
5481-407: The water to that where it touches the bottom. Thomson developed a complete system for operating a submarine telegraph that was capable of sending a character every 3.5 seconds. He patented the key elements of his system, the mirror galvanometer and the siphon recorder , in 1858. Whitehouse still felt able to ignore Thomson's many suggestions and proposals. It was not until Thomson convinced
5568-737: The work amounted to six, with some that were popular consigned to an appendix. Later Dykes's music was condemned for its alleged over-chromaticism (even though some 92% of his hymn tunes are either entirely, or almost entirely diatonic) and for sentimentality. Erik Routley was disparaging, and Kenneth Long in The Music of the English Church (1971) classed as providers of a "glow of spurious religiosity" Dykes with Joseph Barnby , Henry Gauntlett , John Stainer and Arthur Sullivan . More recent views are from Arthur Hutchings , Nicholas Temperley and Jeremy Dibble , seeing Dykes's work in from
5655-450: The work of Joseph Thomas Fowler and press reports show that a number of his part-songs were performed by the CUMS. He graduated B.A. in 1847 as a senior optime as Dykes, and M.A. in 1851. Dykes was appointed to the curacy of Malton , North Yorkshire, in 1847. He was ordained deacon at York Minster in January 1848. He was awarded the Mus.Doc. degree by Cambridge in 1849. In 1849 Dykes
5742-504: The year of Lord Kelvin's birth, used −267 as an estimate of the absolute zero temperature. Thomson used data published by Regnault to calibrate his scale against established measurements. In his publication, Thomson wrote: ... The conversion of heat (or caloric ) into mechanical effect is probably impossible, certainly undiscovered —But a footnote signalled his first doubts about the caloric theory, referring to Joule's very remarkable discoveries . Surprisingly, Thomson did not send Joule
5829-462: Was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer. Born in Belfast, he was the professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, where he undertook significant research and mathematical analysis of electricity, was instrumental in the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics , and contributed significantly to unifying physics , which
5916-445: Was a consequence of overwork, exacerbated by his clash with Bishop Baring, has, however, recently been questioned; one scholar suggests that the medical evidence points to his having succumbed to tertiary syphilis, and speculates that Dykes may have contracted the disease during his undergraduate years. He is buried in the ‘overflow’ churchyard of St Oswald's, a piece of land for whose acquisition and consecration he had been responsible
6003-566: Was a parish that required two curates, Baring asked for a pledge they would not use ritualist practices. Dykes then sought from the Court of Queen's Bench a writ of mandamus , requiring the Bishop to do so. He retained both John Coleridge and Archibald John Stephens Q.C. Stephens had defended W. J. E. Bennett in 1872 in the doctrinal case brought to the Privy Council by Thomas Byard Sheppard (see Sheppard family (clothiers) ). But
6090-526: Was a teacher of mathematics and engineering at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and the son of a farmer. James Thomson married Margaret Gardner in 1817 and, of their children, four boys and two girls survived infancy. Margaret Thomson died in 1830 when William was six years old. William and his elder brother James were tutored at home by their father while the younger boys were tutored by their elder sisters. James
6177-483: Was able to make a generous provision for his favourite son's education and, in 1841, installed him, with extensive letters of introduction and ample accommodation, at Peterhouse, Cambridge . While at Cambridge, Thomson was active in sports, athletics and sculling , winning the Colquhoun Sculls in 1843. He took a lively interest in the classics, music, and literature; but the real love of his intellectual life
6264-519: Was appointed a minor canon of Durham Cathedral (an appointment which he held until his death), and shortly thereafter to the office of precentor . Between 1850 and 1852 he lived at Hollingside House, now the official residence of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Durham . In 1862 he relinquished the precentorship (to the dismay of Sir Frederick Ouseley ) on his appointment to the living of St Oswald's , Durham , situated almost in
6351-540: Was established by the Board of Trade and the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Most of the blame for the cable's failure was found to rest with Whitehouse. The committee found that, though underwater cables were notorious in their lack of reliability , most of the problems arose from known and avoidable causes. Thomson was appointed one of a five-member committee to recommend a specification for a new cable. The committee reported in October 1863. In July 1865, Thomson sailed on
6438-501: Was his equipment that was providing the service and started to engage in desperate measures to remedy some of the problems. He fatally damaged the cable by applying 2,000 volts . When the cable failed completely Whitehouse was dismissed, though Thomson objected and was reprimanded by the board for his interference. Thomson subsequently regretted that he had acquiesced too readily to many of Whitehouse's proposals and had not challenged him with sufficient vigour. A joint committee of inquiry
6525-470: Was intended to benefit from the major share of his father's encouragement, affection and financial support and was prepared for a career in engineering. In 1832, his father was appointed professor of mathematics at Glasgow , and the family moved there in October 1833. The Thomson children were introduced to a broader cosmopolitan experience than their father's rural upbringing, spending mid-1839 in London, and
6612-428: Was intrigued but sceptical. Though he felt that Joule's results demanded theoretical explanation, he retreated into an even deeper commitment to the Carnot–Clapeyron school. He predicted that the melting point of ice must fall with pressure , otherwise its expansion on freezing could be exploited in a perpetuum mobile . Experimental confirmation in his laboratory did much to bolster his beliefs. In 1848, he extended
6699-602: Was inversely proportional to the square of the length of the cable. Thomson's results were disputed at a meeting of the British Association in 1856 by Wildman Whitehouse , the electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company . Whitehouse had possibly misinterpreted the results of his own experiments but was doubtless feeling financial pressure as plans for the cable were already well under way. He believed that Thomson's calculations implied that
6786-444: Was known before his work, Kelvin determined its correct value as approximately −273.15 degrees Celsius or −459.67 degrees Fahrenheit . The Joule–Thomson effect is also named in his honour. Kelvin worked closely with mathematics professor Hugh Blackburn in his work. He also had a career as an electrical telegraph engineer and inventor which propelled him into the public eye and earned him wealth, fame, and honours. For his work on
6873-738: Was manager of a branch of the Yorkshire Bank opened in Hull in 1834. He was later a banker in Wakefield , from November 1841 at the Wakefield and Barnsley Union Bank, 65 Westgate. The family moved there at the end of 1841; it was mentioned at the time that John was an organist at his grandfather's church. John attended the West Riding Proprietary School in Wakefield, to 1843. Dykes matriculated in 1843 (with surname Dikes) at Katharine Hall , Cambridge. There he
6960-456: Was partly in response to his encouragement that Faraday undertook the research in September 1845 that led to the discovery of the Faraday effect , which established that light and magnetic (and thus electric) phenomena were related. He was elected a fellow of St. Peter's (as Peterhouse was often called at the time) in June 1845. On gaining the fellowship, he spent some time in the laboratory of
7047-541: Was pursued through the courts, until he resigned his living in 1882. Dykes's treatment at the hands of the evangelical party, which included Bishop Charles Baring , was largely played out locally. Archdeacon Edward Prest held strongly to anti-ritualist views. The situation in County Durham in 1851 was that Wesleyan Methodist congregations outnumbered the Anglicans. Something on which Baring and Dykes agreed
7134-439: Was that the strength of nonconformity reflected on failures of the Church of England. The Dean of Durham , from 1869 William Charles Lake , was on the other hand a High Churchman , and not an opponent of ritualism, who put his views on the issue on record in a letter to The Times in 1880. He took on Baring over restoration of the cathedral, and succeeded shortly after Dykes had died. Dykes wish to recruit George Peake as
7221-539: Was the original setting for Onward, Christian Soldiers by Sabine Baring-Gould . The Hymnal published by authority of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America (1895) contained 43 tunes by Dykes. Numerous harmonisations of existing tunes were made by Dykes. They include: Dykes wrote two major anthems — These are they that came out of great tribulation and The Lord
7308-436: Was the pursuit of science. The study of mathematics, physics, and in particular, of electricity, had captivated his imagination. In 1845 Thomson graduated as second wrangler . He also won the first Smith's Prize , which, unlike the tripos , is a test of original research. Robert Leslie Ellis , one of the examiners, is said to have declared to another examiner "You and I are just about fit to mend his pens." In 1845, he gave
7395-584: Was the second Dykes Scholar: the second beneficiary after his elder brother, Thomas, of an endowment established in 1840 in honour of his grandfather. As an extra-curricular subject, he studied music under Thomas Attwood Walmisley , whose madrigal society he joined. He also joined the Peterhouse Musical Society (later renamed the Cambridge University Musical Society ), becoming its fourth President, immediately following his friend, William Thomson . His diaries and correspondence,
7482-524: Was then in its infancy of development as an emerging academic discipline. He received the Royal Society 's Copley Medal in 1883 and served as its president from 1890 to 1895. In 1892, he became the first scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords . Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in Lord Kelvin's honour. While the existence of a coldest possible temperature, absolute zero ,
7569-672: Was thoroughly aware of the rich reservoir of continental harmonic innovation in the music of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Weber, Spohr, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and early Wagner and he had absolutely no compunction in using this developed harmonic vocabulary in his tunes both as a colourful expressive tool and as a further means of musical integration." On 25 July 1850, Dykes married Susannah (1827–1902), daughter of George Kingston, by whom he had three sons and five daughters: William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907 )
#865134