History of universities in Scotland perhaps the first of their kind in the world. His students founded practical chemistry at Aberdeen soon after. William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy at Glasgow aged only 22. His work included the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. By 1870 Kelvin and Rankine had made Glasgow the leading centre of science and engineering education and investigation in Britain. At Edinburgh, major figures included David Brewster (1781–1868), who made contributions to the science of optics and to the development of photography. Fleeming Jenkin (1833–85) was
Chemical thermodynamics first two laws of thermodynamics could be measured graphically and mathematically to determine both the thermodynamic equilibrium of chemical reactions as well as their tendencies to occur or proceed. Gibbs’ collection of papers provided the first unified body of thermodynamic theorems from the principles developed by others, such as Clausius and Sadi Carnot. During the early 20th century, two major publications successfully applied the principles developed by Gibbs to chemical processes, and thus established the foundation of the science of chemical thermodynamics. The first was the 1923 textbook "Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances" by Gilbert N. Lewis