The Scientists: Lord Kelvin’s Dangerous Idea (Absolute Zero)

It was here that two men who changed the face of the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries have their stars. The first that we'll come across is William Thompson. You know him as Lord Kelvin of the Kelvin Thermometry Scale, the Kelvin Temperature Scale. He coined the term absolute zero. He worked on international communications. Kelvin was appointed a philosophy professor, which is a physics professor, just like James Clerk Maxwell.

at the tender age of just 22 years old. He worked on thermodynamics, electromagnetism, many inventions that we take for granted to this day, but none are as synonymous as his name, the Kelvin scale. Today, I'd like to think about talking to him about the cosmic microwave background, which is not only the most perfect blackbody known in the known universe, but it's also the lowest temperature.

found in the natural universe. We can cool things much colder in my laboratory down to 50 milli Kelvin or even below, but to get to three degrees Kelvin is provided by the universe itself. the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is what I study, of course. So the University of Glasgow motto is world changers welcome.

They pioneered a great deal of some of the top science and engineering in the world. Kelvin also studied telegraphy, which is the communications art, using a cable across the Atlantic. He built on the work of his fellow Glaswegian, James Watt, who wasn't born here, but lived in the early to middle of the 18th century. Watt we now recognize for his work on steam engines.

And even the unit of power is named after him. Watt is the unit of electric power, you ask? Good question. It's the Watt. The Watt named after James Watt. Recognized for his Titanic contributions.

to the science of thermodynamics. Why is the Kelvin scale called Kelvin? Well, I'm glad you asked. Here on the campus. the University of Glasgow. They pay homage to the great Lord Kelvin. Now why is he called Kelvin? Because the river here, which we'll show you in just a moment, is the Kelvin River. So Lord Thompson, William Lord Thompson, lived here and is synonymous with this city, inextricably linked to the success and notoriety of this amazing and vibrant city.

We'll see the Kelvin River in just a moment. Which is where we get the name for absolute zero temperature scale. Knighted in 1866. Lord Kelvin's fame is intimately related to this incredible city. He was born here in Glasgow, but he died and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Fittingly, his tomb... is located next to the great physicist Isaac Newton. We're coming up on the Kelvin building at the University of Glasgow.

We're going to the Kelvin building, the University of Glasgow. This is not only synonymous with Lord Kelvin, but sign right there. We'll see the lecture theater where he once delivered fascinating lectures, including the concept of absolute zero, all named right here. Liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen. Lord Kelvin will be fascinated by this. It stands at a frosty 77 Kelvin. A mere 77 degrees above absolute zero.

Now, Kelvin and centigrade are essentially the same thing. They have different zero points. The zero point of Kelvin equates to minus 273 degrees Celsius. Kelvin building. Nowadays, the site... some of the most advanced science and engineering imaginable completely inconceivable to lord kelvin there's nano characterization gravitational research and of course astronomy

where they study the three degree kelvin cosmic microwave background radiation. Now we come upon this strange symbol here at the Ouroboros. What is it doing here? A mythological serpent that's eating its tail. And here it surrounds a triangle, which itself surrounds an asterisk, a six-pointed star. What do these all have to do with each other? Well, allegedly, according to local legend, the symbol combined represents alchemy.

Which is strange, but follow me here. Alchemy represents the fusing of the mythical with the scientific. The logical with the metaphysical. It's meant to represent the transmutation of baser metals into valuable metals in gold. And science does do that. Triangle represents perfection. Three equal angles. The star represents astronomy.

Astronomy being the crown of all sciences. Originally, this building wasn't a physics building. It was called natural philosophy building, just as Galileo and even Maxwell were considered natural philosophers. That's what they used to call us. as physicists back in the 1800s and earlier. The Ouroboros, the snake, represents eternity, which can be found in scientific knowledge, principles passed on throughout all the ages, from master to disciple.

The triangle represents geometry, mathematical perfection, the simplest but most elegant of all designs, which is the art and science melted together in this incredible building where Lord Kelvin used to do his work. Okay, why am I standing underneath this tree? Well this tree represents the transmutation of carbon dioxide into oxygen. That's what trees do.

And fittingly enough, it's at the Joseph Black building. Now, who was Joseph Black? Joseph Black was the man who discovered carbon dioxide. He called it inactive air. And here we have... the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. I wonder if my friend Lee Cronin, the Regius Professor of Chemistry, works in this building. Let's find out if he's here.

The zoology building right across from the physics department or the Kelvin building, the University of Glasgow, is where Lord Kelvin did his phenomenal pioneering work. The front is decorated with beautiful flowers. lovely trees and an amazing but somewhat rundown staircase that leads up. to the very area where Kelvin did his pioneering work on the absolute zero temperature scale, where all molecular motion freezes, stops, even time itself may stop if cooled down to absolute zero.

The molecules in the air in this room are moving really fast, about 300 meters per second. If you cool down a gas, you're making the atoms and molecules move more slowly. and getting to the lowest possible temperatures. So what is the absolute zero temperature scale? Why is it so hard to get to?

Well, absolute zero is defined as the temperature at which all molecular motion stops. So to get something to cool to absolute zero, you need some reservoir of heat that takes away energy, transmits it, and releases it or dumps it to a different area. Today... the simons observatory we use dilution refrigerators which mix isotopes of helium the two isotopes of helium helium-3 and helium-4 and by mixing them together the heat

is diffused or diluted in the process just like dilution of alcoholic spirits, for example, releases heat from one area and absorbs in another. We use what's called a mixing chamber. and a mixing chamber to dilute, depending on the ratio of helium-3 to helium-4, we can get continuous closed-cycle cooling down to near absolute zero temperatures.

We can't actually reach absolute zero. That would take an infinite amount of waste heat expulsion, which is almost impossible to get. So we can make it so that the most energetic atoms just have enough energy to just move off and escape and they fly away. We can actually...

Pull out just the hot atoms, leaving the rest of them at a colder temperature. This is called evaporative cooling. It's essentially the same as when you blow in your coffee cup. The hottest molecules make it out of the water, and if you can constantly be blowing those away... you can cool down your coffee and that gets us all the way down to these temperatures of micro kelvin millionth of a degree above absolute zero now the distance we can see

the Kelvin River Valley, which is what this area is named after and why he was called Lord Kelvin. Come with me. Hey everybody, I'm usually the one that asks my guests to judge their books by their covers, but today I'm asking myself to judge my own book by its cover. My newest book, Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner, is charted full of advice.

life tips, and focus and productivity tips from nine of the world's greatest minds. Nobel laureates ranging from economics to peace to physics, of course. It launches September 9th, which is also my birthday. I hope you'll check it out. And my publisher's got an Amazon to run a special just for listeners on the Into the Impossible podcast. You can get the Kindle edition for only 99 cents. That's less than a new pocket protector.

So go to Amazon and get the Kindle copy today because this special only lasts for the first week after launch. So we have heat always needs a reservoir and an exhaust. Here we see this big tower. the big tower is where the heat is getting exhausted from the building in order to keep it cold inside or heated in the winter okay we're coming up on the honterian museum there's two

Hunterian, there's actually three Hunterian museums and galleries at the University of Glasgow. There's the Zoology Museum, there's a art gallery and there's a history museum. We can see that some of the downtown skyline features of modern Glasgow mixed together with some of the old historical buildings and even in the distance. you can see where the Science Center is. So here we can see down towards the Kelvin River and the Science Center, the main part of the Glasgow skyline. There's a big...

Industrial Center as well. University of Glasgow. Here is Lord Thompson, Baron Kelvin of Largs. Lord Thompson, Lord Kelvin lived here in the late 19th century. There's a plaque commemorating his work here. He matriculated the university at the age of 10. Can you believe that age of 10 was its professor of natural philosophy or physics from 1846 to 1899?

and dying as its chancellor. He's built into the fabric of this incredible university. He's buried beside Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey. So we're going to go through the courtyard here. to find the sculpture, the statue of Lord King. One of his most famous blunders was the laughable assertion in the late 19...

1800s, that the future of physics would be found merely in the sixth decimal place of numbers. In other words, everything that could be discovered was discovered, and the job of science was merely to find more and more. precise expressions of its values. This was a year before he died a year before Max Planck's theory of the quantum nature of light. He never got to see the quantum revolution.

and is reminiscent of Maxwell, who came up with Maxwell's equations, but also predicted that it was necessary for there to be an ether in order to support the very waves of energy that he first postulated. Great men can make great mistakes, but still be considered for their intellectual achievements. The quadrangle of the Hunterian Museum is breathtaking.

Gothic spires, towers. You can just imagine Lord Kelvin being here. And even James Watt, his predecessor. We'll have more to say about Watt later. What does evolution have to do with Kelvin? Well, actually, Darwin and Kelvin clash, but it's not the way that you would think. In the 19th century, two of the greatest scientific minds in history clashed, not out of ego, but due to physics.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution required billions of years for the microscopic changes to accumulate to form the changes that we recognize from ancient fossils of animals to early hominins as displayed here. But there was a problem. Lord Kelvin, the father of thermodynamics, didn't believe the Earth was anywhere near that old. So there was a clash between the processes that were needed to produce humans at that time and the amount of...

time that physics said was possible. We see these exact same problems today when there are claims made that the James Webb Space Telescope shows galaxies that are far too mature to have existed shortly after the Big Bang. These claims are exactly as misplaced as those of Lord Kelvin. What was the conflict about? Using heat conduction equations, Kelvin calculated how long the Earth could possibly have retained heat since its formation. His answer?

was that it could only have existed for 20 to 40 million years, a far, far cry from what Darwin had predicted just decades earlier in terms of the billions of years needed for the evolutionary steps to take place.

Now Darwin was troubled. He believed in the theory of evolution with all his heart and soul, but he was troubled because of Lord Kelvin's titanic intellect. Darwin actually admitted for a while that Kelvin could be right and his theory was thrown into flux into turmoil all because of a calculation made by this pioneering physicist but who was right kelvin or darwin the father of the theory of evolution or the father of the theory of thermodynamics kelvin wasn't wrong

He just didn't have knowledge of the actual processes that keep the Earth warm to this time, which relies on something that wouldn't be discovered until several years after his death. Radioactivity is the reason that the Earth maintains a constant flux of temperature. and its ground core rather than relying on heat from its primordial formation to be conducting through its surface from only 20 million years ago. And in fact, it has allowed the radioactive decays.

heat the earth from the inside out, that's allowed it to exist for billions of years. Just like the meteorites that fell on Glasgow. That's how science should work. Not name calling, not Twitter threads, not call out debates on Piers Morgan, but instead. honest feedback with a desire for epistemological truth-seeking. Here we go. Here's the bust of Lord Kell. Yeah.

Here's the bust of Lord Kelvin. Kelvin and James White, Lord Kelvin's patents. Electrical pressure, voltmeter. Kelvin was also a businessman. capitalizing on the industrial revolution that he had unleashed. The devices and instruments including pressure gauges, electrometers, electrostatic generators.

and many other devices used in metrology. Even to this day, the principles are still used. Electrical current or voltmeters. His skill as an inventor was only matched by his creativity as a physicist, but he was also a businessman.

knowing how great science sometimes needs great patrons in order to support and continue research. Here's a current balance. These are all voltmeters or current ammeters. This is called a Kelvin mouse mill motor. No sooner was the first submarine cables delayed for telecommunications than people wanted a way of recording the signals from them. The siphon recorder was used for this. A paper tape would move.

The tape in the mouse mill motor as the motor rotates, it develops an electrostatic charge that attracts the ink to the paper, keeping it recorded in an early form of data acquisition. communication there was a galvometer which is a voltmeter and then eventually culminating with his patents with white to make ammeters to make

This is a voltmeter that the Kelvin company would make, obviously culminating with the light bulb and eventually the electric light bulb. It was first demonstrated by Joseph Swan in Britain, then patented by Thomas Edison. A year later, Calvin used these lamps in his first electric lighting system in the city. By 1900, the scientific battle about whether or not it was better to distribute AC or DC electricity was won. Nikola Tesla pioneered the AC system.

Also advocated for gas discharge lighting the modern fluorescent tube. This gas tube was one he presented to Kelvin in 1902. Calvin's legacy lives on in many different formats, from the temperature scale that bears his name to the many inventions and patents, which he first pioneered for the first practical use of electrostatics and even magnetostatics, which we use for magnetic recording.

Hey everybody, I'm usually the one that asks my guests to judge their books by their covers, but today I'm asking myself to judge my own book by its cover. My newest book, Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner, is charted full of advice. life tips, and focus and productivity tips from nine of the world's greatest minds. Nobel laureates ranging from economics to peace to physics, of course. It launches September 9th, which is also my birthday.

I hope you'll check it out. And my publisher's got an Amazon to run a special just for listeners on the Into the Impossible podcast. You can get the Kindle edition for only 99 cents. That's less than a new pocket protector. So go to Amazon and get the Kindle copy today because this special only lasts for the first week after launch.