Synopses & Reviews
This collection of the correspondence between G.G. Stokes and Lord Kelvin provides invaluable insight and information on a period of major historical importance. Stokes and Kelvin helped to bring about conceptual and institutional changes that transformed the science of physics. They and their Victorian colleagues constituted one of the most significant groups of scientists in the history of science. Stokes and Kelvin corresponded for more than fifty years as professors in Cambridge and Glasgow respectively, thus amassing what is easily the largest extant correspondence between two Victorian physicists. The letters range widely over the people, ideas, and institutions of the age, illuminating the histories of Cambridge and Glasgow Universities and the Royal Society of London, as well as developments in electromagnetism, hydrodynamics, elasticity, optics, and X-rays. This collection is well indexed and fully annotated. It will serve as a primary resource for historians, physicists, and researchers in nineteenth century British science and the history of physics.
Review
"...an excellent book (bound in two handy volumes) which will be of great value for all future studies of nineteenth-century physical science." Nature"...a unique insight into Kelvin's and Stokes's work and into texture of Victorian scientific life...Besides abundant materials on the strictly scientific work of Kelvin and Stokes, their letters provide an unusually detailed look at the inner workings of British scientific institutions during a period of profound change." Science
Table of Contents
Volume I: Preface; Explanatory notes; Introduction; List of letters; The Correspondence (1846-1969). Volume II: Explanatory notes; The Correspondence (1870-1901); Index of publications by Stokes and kelvin; Index of names and subjects.