William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

Thomson’s importance lay in his attempts to unify electromagnetic and thermodynamic theory, and to apply theory to practice. As a young graduate he worked in Regnault’s lab, as Foucault also did, and met with Biot, Cauchy, Liouville (an especially encouraging friend) and Sturm for good stimulating mathematical/scientific discussion. Stokes (met like Cayley at Cambridge) and Joule were long-term friends and collaborators of Thomson’s, while both Maxwell and Faraday did notable work stimulated by him. Tesla (whom he greatly admired), Edison and Westinghouse were all met in New York, while Helmholtz, a good friend, visited Thomson in Scotland.