Scientific Papers

by James Prescott Joule

Excerpt from Scientific Papers

Comparison of solid magnet with one Of square iron wire, 6. Comparison Of magnets of round bar iron with hollow cylindrical magnet, 7. Â Characteristics Of magnets for lifting and for attracting from a distance, 8. Â Advantages Of hollow and solid magnets, 8. Comparison Of square wire magnets with square solid magnets, 9.

704 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 2011

About the author

James Prescott Joule FRS (/dʒuːl/; (24 December 1818 – 11 October 1889) was an English physicist and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work (see energy). This led to the Law of conservation of energy, and this led to the development of the First law of thermodynamics. The SI derived unit of energy, the joule, is named for James Joule. He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop the absolute scale of temperature. Joule also made observations of magnetostriction, and he found the relationship between the current through a resistor and the heat dissipated, which is now called Joule's first law.

A bust of him, by John Cassidy, can be found in Worthington Park, Sale. Further details of this work can be found at http://www.johncassidy.org.uk/joule.html.

Fellow of the Royal Society, (1850);

Royal Medal, (1852) ‘For his paper on the mechanical equivalent of heat, printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1850’;

Copley Medal, (1870) ‘For his experimental researches on the dynamical theory of heat’;

President of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, (1860);

President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, (1872, 1887);

Honorary Membership of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, (1857);

Honorary degrees:
DCL, University of Oxford, (1860);
LL.D., University of Edinburgh, (1871).

He received a civil list pension of £200 per annum in 1878 for services to science;

Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, (1880) ‘for having established, after most laborious research, the true relation between heat, electricity and mechanical work, thus affording to the engineer a sure guide in the application of science to industrial pursuits’.

There is a memorial to Joule in the north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey, though he is not buried there, contrary to what some biographies state.

A statue by Alfred Gilbert, stands in Manchester Town Hall, opposite that of Dalton.