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Kelvin: Life, Labours and Legacy

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To researchers into the history of undersea cables, any book on Lord Kelvin, one of the pioneers in this field, must be of interest.

Conceived in 2007, just 100 years after Kelvin's death, this scholarly anthology is made up of sixteen chapters divided into three sections. Each essay is written by an expert in one of three fields; Kelvin's Life, Labours, and Legacy, as the title suggests. As the editors' preface notes, the contributors include historians of science and of mathematics, physicists, mathematicians, and engineers.

Each section of the book has one chapter of particular relevance to his theoretical and practical work in the cable field:

In Life, Peter Bowler focuses on William Thomson's older brother James, who spent most of his career as an engineer, and discusses the influences he had on William. Labours has a lengthy piece by Bernard Crossland titled Kelvin and Engineering, much of which considers Thomson's work on the Atlantic cable. Finally, in Legacy, editor Andrew Whitaker sums up Kelvin's career, including thoughts on his contributions to engineering and invention.

This is not to say that the remaining chapters lack interest. While a single-author work such as David Lindley's Degrees Kelvin (see below) can present a unified, in-depth view of William Thomson's life and career, the format of Kelvin: Life, Labours and Legacy allows sixteen different voices to be heard, presenting new insights into Kelvin's long and varied work in many areas of scientific and engineering endeavour.