published a eulogy of Lord Kelvin: There are quite a few detailed biographies of Lord Kelvin. The ones I found most illuminating are Gray 1908, Thompson 1910 (reprinted in 1976), Smith and Wise 1989, Lindley 2004, and Sharlin and Sharlin 1979. Wilson 1987 describes side by side the physics of Kelvin with that of Victorian physicist Sir George Gabriel Stokes (Stokes lived 1819–1903, Kelvin 1824–1907). Burchfield 1990 concentrates on Kelvin’s work on the problem of the age of the Earth.

“after making himself Second Wrangler”: The “Senior Wrangler” was the undergraduate student who received the highest grades in the mathematical honors examinations at Cambridge, known as the “Tripos.” William Thomson was expected by most to be Senior Wrangler. In fact, his tutor, Dr. Cookson, noted that it would be “a great surprise to the University if he were not.” Thomson himself was somewhat less convinced. When the competition began, another student, Stephen Parkinson, who was apparently more efficient in answering very rapidly and economically, emerged as a candidate to win. At the end, the more talented but less speedy Kelvin indeed came in second. Thomson did beat Parkinson, however, for the Smith’s Prize, awarded for the best performance in a series of examinations and thought to require more profound analytical understanding.

“I may say that the one thing”: Kelvin made this comment in his Baltimore Lectures on molecular dynamics and the wave theory of light, given at the Johns Hopkins University in 1884.

“On the Secular Cooling”: Kelvin 1864.

“On the Age of the Sun’s”: Kelvin 1862.