Scottish education in the nineteenth century 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 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 the first professor of engineering at the university and
First law of thermodynamics occur and be calculated simultaneously. Putting the two complementary aspects together, the first law for a particular reversible process can be written This combined statement is the expression the first law of thermodynamics for reversible processes for closed systems. In particular, if no work is done on a thermally isolated closed system we have This is one aspect of the law of conservation of energy and can be stated: If, in a process of change of state of a closed system, the energy transfer is not under a practically zero temperature gradient and practically frictionless, then the process is irreversible.