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
First law of thermodynamics a distinction between bulk flow and diffusive flow of internal energy, the latter driven by a temperature gradient within the flowing material, and being defined with respect to the local center of mass of the bulk flow. In this case of a virtually closed system, because of the zero matter transfer, as noted above, one can safely distinguish between transfer of energy as work, and transfer of internal energy as heat. First law of thermodynamics The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic systems. The law of conservation of energy