Abstract
I. Lord Kelvin Urged Geologists to Accept Limitations Set by Physics on theEarth's Age. In contrast to the narrow specialization of present-day scientists somegreat physicists in the nineteenth century made significant contributions tonumerous branches of science. England recognized this breadth and depth in SirWilliam Thomson and elevated his title to Lord Kelvin. It was Kelvin'sbrilliant thermodynamic analysis that gave us the absolute temperature scalethat bears his name. When the Atlantic cable was laid it took the ingeniouselectromagnetic developments of Kelvin to make it a workable device. His bestpapers are to be found in a six volume set, Mathematical and PhysicalPapers, Lord Kelvin, (Cambridge University Press, 1911). Many of thosepapers employed physics to expose the errors inherent in the long-age conceptsheld by uniformitarian geologists. One paper was entitled: "The 'Doctrineof Uniformity' in Geology Briefly Refuted"; another was entitled: "Onthe Age of the Sun's Heat". Many of his papers dealt with the age of theearth.