Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) was born a little over 200 years ago in June 1824 and was arguably the greatest scientist of the 19th Century. However today, he is little known outside of the field of temperature measurement, and even then little is known about the details of his life nor the broad range of his contributions, to science, engineering and society. In this talk Professor Machin aims to bring Lord Kelvin “to life”, he will give an overview of the life of Lord Kelvin and then detail some of his outstanding achievements that have shaped the world in which we live today. It will be seen that Lord Kelvin was not only a great scientist, but also an outstanding engineer and indeed a savvy technology entrepreneur and politician.
“a love of precision in all things, and the highest virtue of an experimenter -patience”
Lord Kelvin.
About the speaker:
Professor Graham Machin FREng, BSc (Hons), DPhil, DSc, HonFInstMC, FInstP, FIPEM, CPhys, CEng.
Senior NPL Fellow in Temperature Measurement.
Speaker CV:-
Graham is a Senior NPL Fellow, has >30 years’ thermometry research experience, published >250 papers and given numerous keynote/plenary talks. He holds visiting/honorary professorships at Birmingham, Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities. He represents the UK on the Consultative Committee of Thermometry (CCT), was President of the Institute of Measurement and Control (2018-2019) and chair of the Euramet Technical Committee for Thermometry (2014-2018). In 2019 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, in 2021 he was awarded the InstMC Harold Hartley medal for “outstanding contributions to the technology of measurement and control” and elected Honorary Fellow in 2024.
He has wide ranging research interests e.g. future kelvin, driftless practical thermometry, clinical thermometry, photonic thermometry and leads NPL’s metrology activity for nuclear decommissioning. As part of the Kelvin 200 celebrations, he is organising a Royal Society Theo Murphy discussion meeting “The redefined kelvin – progress and prospects” to be held in Glasgow 24-25 February 2025.
To join the MS Teams meeting, please click here