In existographies, James Forbes (1809-1868) (CR:13) was a Scottish physicist notable for his 1830s publications on the “undulatory theory of heat” and for his influence on Scottish engineer William Rankine, a student of his at Edinburgh University between 1836 and 1838. [1]
Rankine
In 1849, Scottish engineer William Rankine, building on Forbes ideas on heat, gave Forbes a copy of his two-part paper outlining a “molecular vortices” hypothesis of atomic structure and vortex heat generation. Forbes, who was at that time the secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), sponsored the election of Rankine to the RSE. This brought Rankine into contact with the likes of William Thomson, James Maxwell, Peter Tait, and Rudolf Clausius, among others. [2]
Education
In 1825, Forbes, aged 16, entered the University of Edinburgh, and soon afterwards began to contribute papers to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal anonymously under the signature "Δ", likely in being a pseudonym for a person who is interested in heat (see also: θΔcs). [3] Between 1836 and 1844 he published in the Trans. Roy. Soc. Ed. four series of "Researches on Heat".
References
1. Shairp, John C., Tait, Peter G., and Adams-Reilly, Anthony. (2001). Life and Letters of James David Forbes. Adament Media Corporation.
2. Smith, Crosbie. (1998). The Science of Energy: a Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain (pgs. 102-07). University of Chicago Press.
3. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, vol. XIX, p ii.
External links
● James David Forbes – Wikipedia.
