William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907) was a Scots-Irish mathematical physicist and engineer who was born in Belfast in 1824. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form. He worked closely with mathematics professor Hugh Blackburn in his work. He also had a career as an electric telegraph engineer and inventor, which propelled him into the public eye
Baron Playfair Baron Playfair Baron Playfair, of St Andrews in the County of Fife, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 3 September 1892 for the scientist and Liberal politician Sir Lyon Playfair. He was succeeded by his only son, the second Baron. He was a Brigadier-General in the British Army. His only son, the Hon. Lyon George Henry Lyon Playfair (1888-1915), was a Captain in the Royal Field Artillery and was killed in action in the First World War, unmarried. Consequently, the title became extinct on the death of the second Baron in 1939.