They Changed Their World and Ours 9 Quiz

Answer: Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was born to British parents, who were living in Italy at that time and named her for the city of her birth, Florence. She developed a liberal humanitarian philosophy toward her fellow human beings because of her parents' influence, yet they were still conservative enough to believe that women should aspire to nothing more than marriage and having children. Thus, in 1844, when she expressed to them her earnest desire to be a nurse, they were devastated and angry. That she sought employment outside a domestic setting was bad enough, but being a nurse made the matter even more horrible. Nurses did not have favorable reputations. Nursing was considered work for "fallen women" as they witnessed nude men in hospitals and were frequently thought to be accommodating toward doctors' sexual needs.

This prejudiced view of nursing changed completely because of Nightingale's efforts. In 1854, after learning of the horrific conditions suffered by wounded British soldiers of the Crimean War, she and thrity-eight female volunteers went to present-day Turkey to care for them more efficiently. That she very well did. She began to implement modern ideas of sanitization, nutrition, and rest, and the mortality rate of British soldiers in hospital began to plummet. Furthermore, she taught her volunteers or "Angels" proper medical care and created a more systematic organization of the hospital. Back home, the press was creating a heroic image of Nightingale in Victorian Great Britain, and she was named the Lady with the Lamp because of stories of her traversing the halls of the hospital at night to visit recuperating soldiers who saw her approaching lamp as a beacon of hope and compassion.

When she eventually returned to England, she continued her crusade. She established the nursing school at London's St. Thomas Hospital, the first secular nursing school in the world. She also used her position of fame and admiration in society to push for greater health care efforts and training in Britain as well as for humanitarian outreach for the poor in India, the so-called "Jewel of the British Empire" at that time. Furthermore, she used her skill as a writer to advocate greater acceptance of women in the workforce and for the abolition of prostitution laws (because these laws were extremely punitive toward women).

In her honor, the Florence Nightingale Medal was established in Britian and is still awarded to those in the nursing field to this day. Moreover, the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated on Nightingale's birthday. When she was awarded the Royal Order of Merit in 1907, she was too ill to leave her bed, so it was presented to her there. Her simple response was, "Too kind, too kind". Throughout her life, she had humbly resisted any recognition for what she was doing, for she believed it all to be in service to God.

Answer: Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) came from a humble beginning; his father was an apprentice to a village blacksmith, and what little education he acquired in his youth was mostly due to his own personal studies and reading. At the age of fourteen, Faraday became apprenticed to a local bookbinder by the name of George Ribeau, and his service to this man benefited him tremendously. He encountered a great number of books that he most likely would never have read, and many of these significantly influenced him (particularly Isaac Watts's "The Improvement of the Mind" and Jane Marcet's "Conversations on Chemsitry"). Furthermore, it was Ribeau who brought Faraday to the attention of William Dance, who initially provided tickets to Faraday so that he might attend lectures by the English chemist Humphry Davy. Davy was so taken with Faraday, who compiled several notes on Davy's lectures and printed them in a nicely bound book, that Davy got Faraday into the Royal Institute and thus sparked his illustrious career.

Eventually, Faraday secured work in his own laboratory in 1825, and from there he would explain the concept of force, discover electromagnetic rotation and induction, describe the Faraday effect, formulate Faraday's law, contribute to the understanding of diamagnetism and electrolysis, and lay the foundation of field theory. He also discovered benzene, invented an early version of the Bunsen burner, and created a system of oxidation numbers. Faraday had such an impact on the scientists after him that Albert Einstein kept a picture of him, next to Newton and Maxwell, on the wall of this study, and Ernest Rutherford declared, "When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time".

Despite all of his achievements and fame, Faraday remained humble unto the last. At one point, he was offered a knighthood, but he declined the honor because he believed it wrong to pursue worldly rewards and riches. He preferred to remain, in his words, "plain Mr. Faraday".

Answer: Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck (1815-1898) was born the son of Junkers, members of the Prussian landed nobility whose large estates were worked by exploited peasants. In 1862, Bismarck was appointed Minister President of Prussia by Wilhelm I, and, in 1870, Bismarck created the office of Chancellor of the German Empire and filled it himself, thus becoming Germany's first chancellor. Driven by a desire to unify all of the German states, Bismarck provoked wars with Denmark, Austria, and France and won them. The result was the unification of several of the German states he unified under Prussian rule, the dissolution of the German Confederation, and the acquisition of duchies claimed by Denmark and the region of Alsace-Lorraine (one of the spoils gained by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War). Many have argued that Bismarck's taking this land from France helped spur the fear and hatred of Germans that helped eventually to lead to World War I. Of course, the alliances Bismarck created with other nations to help Germany maintain the power it had achieved under his leadership also were instrumental in the massive involvement of Europeans in the conflict of the Great War. Bismarck strategically manipulated European powers to keep them suspicious of one another so that a balance of power or stalement was established around Europe as a whole. This, he believed, worked in Germany's interest as then no powers were allying in overpowering forces against Germany.

After Bismarck abolished the German Confederation, he created the North German Confederation and eventually the German Empire, which consisted of territory mostly within modern-day Germany, Poland, and Lithuania as well as regions of Denmark and France. Austria never joined the empire as it had been a major opponent of the Prussian state and its quest for dominance. Bismarck believed compassion, fairness, and moral values had no place in the world of politics and diplomacy. In fact, he compared a diplomat with principles to "a man who attempts to walk through a dense forest with a long pole clamped horizontally between his teeth".

At home, in Germany, he encouraged a spirit of nationalism among his people that extended beyond his lifetime into two different world wars. Some see him as somewhat of a forerunner to Adolf Hitler. He had a vision of Germany as a conservative nationalist state that some have referred to as the Second Reich. He skillfully manipulated German leaders and politicians as well as King Wilhelm I as he maniupulated European leaders at large. He formed alliances when they served him and broke them as easily when he was done using others. He disregarded German law when it served his greater goals to do so, created a system of martial law to keep society "in line", jailed without proper trial those who disagreed with him, censored the press to prevent the people from understanding reality, and weakened the Catholic Church because of its audacity to counter his policies. He did manage to create the modern world's first successful welfare straight, which appears counter to a conservative movement; however, this again was done as a strategic maneuver to outplay the socialists and their powerful leader Ferdinand Lassalle.

Answer: Isabella I

Isabella (1451-1504) was born to John II of Castille and Isabella of Portugal. In her youth, she was third in line to the throne of Castille and Leon behind her half-brother Henry IV and her younger brother Alfonso of Castille. Fate conspired in her favor, and after much political turmoil and bargaining as well as the eventual deaths of first Alfonso and then Henry, Isabella became queen of Castille and Leon in 1474. She had married Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, in 1469, which tremendously contributed to her power. However, the engagement and marriage had to overcome several obstacles. Her half-brother Henry IV opposed the marriage and had attempted on several occasions to marry her off to individuals he felt were more politically compatible to his designs. Furthermore, as Isabella and Ferdinand were second cousins, and the laws of consanguinity prohibited a marriage of such a close relative; consequently, the couple had to rely on both Pope Pius's permission to wed and on an elopement to defy those opposed.

A war with Portugal ensued as King Alfonso V declared himself the rightful heir to Castille. After four years of back and forth victories for either side, Aflonso conceded to Isabella's claims to the land in exchange for a large part of Castille's claims on Atlantic Ocean territories. During this War of Castillian Succession, Isabella established herself as a strong and endearing monarch; in fact, at one point when the citizens of Segovia attempted to rebel, she all alone rode into the city to negotiate with the rebels despite the fact that she had been advised against this.

The unification of Ferdinand and Isabella established Spain as a legitimate nation, but the treaty they had made with Portugal had tremendously limited Spain's access to the seas. Quite advantageously and timely, Christopher Columbus entered upon the stage. Isabella was the primary royal to support his quest to reach the Indies by sailing west not only because she was hoping to open up new access to financial profit and quell the anger of her subjects over the treaty with Portugal but also because Columbus had promised to do what he could to promote Christianity along the way. Columbus, of course, never found a faster route to the East; however, he did discover what would come to be called the New World, and his first conquests, the islands of San Salvador and Hispaniola, spurred Spain forward into the Golden Age of exploration and colonization, eventually establishing Spain as the earth's first global power. It's worth noting that Isabella was opposed to Columbus's enslaving the natives. She set about enacting laws and policies to prohibit this horrid practice, but enforcing such laws across the great Atlantic proved quite difficult.

Other notable accomplishments of hers are her conservative methods to salvage the land from her half-brother's horrible rule. He spent money extravagantly and created huge debts owed by Castille; Isabella not only halted this wreckless spending but unburdened her kingdom of this monumental debt. Furthermore, Henry IV had ruled quite laxly, and murder, theft, and rape had frequently gone unpunished. She established police forces whose missions were not only to halt this rampant criminal behavior but also to drive career criminals out.

Also, she and Ferdinand fostered a great spirit of nationalism among their subjects. Unfortunately, this also included the persecution of Muslims and Jews. She and Ferdinand completed the Reconquista of Spain from the Moors and forced the remaining people of the lslamic faith as well as those of the Jewish either to convert to Catholocism or to accept permanent exile. The establishment of the Spanish Inquisition by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1478 relied on harsh penalties and punishments.

Her youngest daughter Catherine married Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, and upon his death became the wife of King Henry VIII of England and the mother of Mary I.

Answer: Okubo Toshimichi

Okubo Toshimichi (1831-1878) was born in the Satsuma province to a low-ranking warrior retained by daimyo Shimazu Nariakira, who eventually appointed Okubo as his tax administrator after he recognized Okubo's talents for leadership and management. However, after Nariakira died, Okubo eventually joined forces with samurai Saigo Takamori of the Satsuma province and Kido Takayoshito from the Choshu domain to form the secret Satcho Alliance to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal military government. Okubo had grown convinced after various events, such as the outcome of the Anglo-Satsuma War, that Japan would be forced to submit to the will of established Western nations unless Japan changed its devotion to its feudal system and isolationist policies.

In 1868, the combined forces of the Satcho Alliance captured the Kyoto Imperial Palace and proclaimed the Meiji Restoration, which restored practical imperial rule to the Empire of Japan under the Emperor Meiji. A triumvirate consisting of Okubo, Saigo, and Kido was created along with a Home Ministry cabinet with Okubo as its head. Okubo enjoyed more power than the other two as he was given control over the local police forces and over the appointment of local authorities, who were, of course, primarily loyal to him. Thus began the gradual destruction of the samurai. There were nearly two million of these warriors, and they were all supported by stipends given to them by the government. However, Okubo began taxing their stipends and eventually had their stipends converted into government bonds. Okubo also made the wearing of swords in public illegal, and when he declared mandatory service in Japan's new national army, he put an end to the samurai's lone right to own weapons. His Land Tax Reform also established private ownership of land for the first time in Japan's history, therefore ending once and for all the feudal lords' control. He also began the conversion of Japan to a capitalist and industrial society composed of shipyards, smelters, and mills owned by individual entrepreneurs, and he began to spend money on the construction of roads, bridges, and ports. All of this, in turn, led to the development of railroads and mass communication systems. Furthermore, he began builiding a huge national army equipped with modern instruments of warfare, and he spurred the establishment of one central Japanese dialect to further unify the nation's citizens.

Unfortunately, Okubu's life was cut short. His ally Saigo disagreed with some of Okubu's policies, believing them to be too contradictory to Japan's traditional ways, and he led the Satsuma Rebellion against Okubu's new government. While Okubu's forces defeated the Rebellion, many of the remaining Satsuma samurai saw Okubu's victory as treason against the province of his origin. Seven samurai, including their leader Shimada Ichiro ambushed Okubu while he was on his way to the imperial palace and skewered him to death with their swords.

Answer: Ignatius of Loyola

Don Inigo Lopez de Loyola (1491-1556) was born at Loyola castle in what is today Gipuzkoa of the Basque Country. At some point during his life, he began substituting the more Latin-sounding "Ignatius" for "Inigo", perhaps because "Ignatius" would be more easily understood in France and Italy, where he eventually spent most of his time. As a boy, he was highly influenced by the literary romances he read and feverishly began his pursuit of fame and glory in the military of Spain. He established himself as a good soldier as well as a good leader; however, he also established a reputation as a vain man and a philanderer. Furthermore, he participated in a number of duels and was, obviously, always victorious. Eventually, during the Battle of Pamplona in 1521, he was critically injured by a cannonball that hit him in the legs, wounding one and breaking the other's bones into multiple pieces. After several surgeries that involved resetting and rebreaking his bones all without anaesthesia, Ignatius was eventually able to walk again albeit with a limp as one leg was now shorter than the other.

During his lengthy convalescence, Ignatius found God or at least drew much more closer to him than he had ever been. Bedridden in a religious hospital, he had little to do but read, and nearly all of the reading material was scripture and devotional literature. Particularly, a series of texts on the life of Christ and the lives of the saints had the greatest impact on him, and he began to relinquish his dream of a heroic life and embrace the calling toward a religious one. He repented of all his past sins at the monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat, where he then donated all of his fine clothing to the poor in exchange for sack-cloth and left his sword and dagger at Mary's altar.

After living his existence as a beggar for a short while, he, at the age of thrity-three, began his education in earnest by attending a public school for children. Eventually, he enrolled at the University of Alcala, where he studied Latin and theology for nearly ten years. In 1539, he and his close friends Peter Faber and Francis Xavier founded the Society of Jesus, and Ignatius was elected the first Superior General of the Jesuit Order while in Paris. Under his leadership, the Jesuits began to spread out all over Europe, establishing schools, colleges, and seminaries wherever they went. Scholarship, the pursuit of knowledge, and achieving scientific understanding were always of the utmost importance to Ignatius, and his experience in the military influenced his decision to model the Jesuit order after the army and its emphasis on disciipline. Thus, he was able to send forth a dedicated army of missionary-minded priests who had dedicated their lives to living as teachers in imitation of the life of Christ.

Today, these "soldiers of God", as the followers of this order are called in Jesuit founding document, have established themselves throughout the entire planet and have been responsible not only for the spreading of Christianity but also the growing interest in learning and culture.

Interestingly, Ignatius was once called before the Spanish Inquisition because of his book "Spiritual Exercises". He and his book were eventually found innocent of any wrongdoing, and he was released and his book given permission for further publication.

Answer: Carl von Clausewitz

Carl Phillip Gottfried von Clausewitz (178-1831) was born in Burg bei Magdeburg, Prussia (now Germany), the grandson of a theology professor and the son of a bureaucrat who served as a lieutenant in Frederick the Great's army. Von Clauswitz began his military career as a lance corporal at the age of twelve and gradually advanced to the rank of major general. His experience was quite thorough. He served in the Rhine Campaigns during Prussia's invasion of France during the French Revolution, and he fought in the Napoleonic Wars from 1806 to 1815. He became a prisoner of war during the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, and after his release a year later, he returned to Prussia and helped begin a reformation of the Prussian army. However, as he opposed Prussia's forced alliance with Napoleon, he left the Prussian army and joined Russia's. As an officer in the Russian Campaign, he fought in the Battle of Borodino and eventually helped the negoiate the Convention of Taurogen, which led the way ultimately toward an alliance between Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain and eventually the defeat of Napoleon. Von Clausewitz himself participated in the battles of the Waterloo Campaign. Afterwards, he served for several years as the director of the Kriegsakademie or the German War Academy until he rejoined the army in 1830 to handle an uprising in Poland. Unfortunately, while attempting to create a guarded line to prevent the spread of an epidemic of cholera, von Clausewitz caught the illness himself and eventually died from it.

Von Clausewitz was a graduate of the Kriegsakademie and studied philosophy, and his wife Countess Marie von Bruhl was highly educated as well. As a couple, the two of them moved within the circles of the most educated and literary elite. The point is that von Clausewitz was not merely a physical soldier but a very knowledgeable and intellectual one as well. It is no surprise that he eventually began composing a book concerning the political, philosophical, and psychological aspects of war although he died before completing all that he intended to write. His wife edited the collection of what he had written and published it in 1832 under the title of "Vom Kriege" or "On War".

Von Clausewitz is significant because his ideas altered the way nations' governments and leaders looked at war from his time until even the present day. His use of dialectical method allowed him to formulate a view of war as something three-fold--a phenomenon that consisted of emotion (such as fear and hatred manifested through primordial violence), the role of chance or probability, and rational calculation. The end result was a view or philosophy of war that did not merely consist of maps, graphs, and numbers for a battle to be played out on a field. War was more than this. It also involved all of a nation's citizenry. It involved propaganda, economics, and socio-political factors. War was a complex sum of multiple decisions made on several different fronts, militarily as well as politically and socially. He popularized the use of the word "strategy", which he conceived as being any means necessary to winning--not just numbers of soldiers performing successfully on the battlefield but other means as well, such as the spread of fear or false information. He also popularized the phrase "fog of war", a reference to the uncertainty the leader of an army faces about the capability of his or her own forces as well as the capability of the forces of the enemy. This "fogginess" is intensified by not only ignorance but the confidence in facts and statistics that are eventually exposed as false.

Answer: William Tecumseh Sherman

General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) may have been given only the name of "Tecumseh" at his birth by his father who was smitten with the Shawnee chief of the same name. However, his adoptive father gave him the name "William" when he was around nine or ten years old. He attended West Point, where he distinguished himself academically but gained a reputation as someone lacking in the qualities of a good soldier; he was given toward playful mischief and resisted following rules, format, and custom. Upon graduation, he was appointed Second Lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery and served in the Second Seminole War. Eventually, he was sent to be an administrator in the California Territory, recently acquired during the Mexican-American War. In 1859, he was the first superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. While there, as he gained news of South Carolina's secession from the United States, he passionately cautioned the South to rethink its actions, warning its people that they would only fail in the long run and fail miserably.

As the Civil War began, Sherman was a colonel in the 13th U.S. Infantry, and while he distinguished himself as a fighter in the First Battle of Bull Run, the United States lost. Sherman was promoted to brigadier general, but the complications of being an administrator mixed with the exhaustion of battle caused him to experience a breakdown during which he experienced hallucinations and paranoia and considered suicide. After his recuperation, he was re-assigned as commander of the 5th Division of the Army of Tennessee under Ulysses Grant. During the Battle of Shiloh, he again distinguished himself despite his failure to take Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston's armies seriously, a failure that resulted in Sherman's hasty albeit structured and strategic retreat. Sherman continued to gain prestige as he participated in the Vicksburg Campaign, the Jackson (MS) Expedition, and the Chattanooga Campaign.

Eventually, Grant was called east to handle General Robert E. Lee and his forces personally, and he left Sherman behind to lead in his stead. Sherman marched to Meridian, Mississippi, and then convinced Grant that he should be allowed to march to Atlanta and take the city; he argued that if Grant could defeat Lee and he could divide the South by marching to the Atlantic, the South would have to surrender. Grant agreed.

What followed was war unlike any kind the United States had ever seen and unlike many other societies around the world could remember. Sherman carried out a policy of "total war", which famously left in the wake of his tens of thousands of soldiers a "scorched earth". Sherman and his troops marched to Atlanta and then Savannah and then north into the Carolinas. Along the way, they ate the crops and food supplies of the cities and towns they came across and burned what they didn't eat. They burned military outposts, bridges, businesses, and some personal homes. Occasionally, when the troops could get away with it, they looted. Interestingly, more damage was done in South Carolina than in Georgia because of the North's greater animosity toward the state they considered to have been the primary motivating force behind all the other states' decisions to secede. The end result, which is exactly what Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln wanted, was an overall loss of morale, and the war soon came to an end.

After the war, Sherman refused to serve in any political manner as other Northern generals did; in fact, he stated, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected". Instead, after Grant's election to the United States' Presidency, Sherman was appointed Commanding General of the United States Army, and as such he led campaigns during the Indian Wars and relied on his "total war" strategies to push the Indians into reservations set aside for them.

Sherman's greatest impact was in his practices of "total war". He, like Carl von Clausewitz, contributed to the modern understanding of warfare as a phenomenon that involved psychological and sociological factors in addition to practices on the battlefield. He most effectively demonstrated that utter destruction of a society's will to fight was the quickest way to end war although such a strategy contributes to a longer lasting animosity among opponents. Sherman also popularized the strategy of maneuver warfare, a strategy of various indirect attacks on the enemy so that the enemy's ability to make effective decisions is inhibited because of the enemy's frustration and emotional disturbance. Similarly, he popularized the strategy of mechanized warfare, making use of technology to improve weaponry, transportation, etc. These strategies all had an impact on several future military leaders, including Erwin Rommel. One may certainly see the use of "total war" tactics in Germany's Blitzkrieg warfare.

Answer: Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca (1303-1374), or simply Petrarch, was born in Arezzo of the Tuscany region, spent some of his childhood near Florence, and then grew up in Avignon, France. He spent seven years studying law, first at Montpelier and then at Bologna, but decided against law for a career after he grew convinced that the legal practice was mostly a means of selling justice. He himself wrote, "I couldn't face making a merchandise of my mind". Thus, while serving for a few years as a priest, he eventually turned his attention primarily to writing and the study of Latin literature, and he became a most prolific writer and one of the Renaissance's primary scholars. He wrote two books of Italian poetry--"Il Canzoniere" and "Trionfi"--and his use of the language was so masterful that his work was used by Pietro Bembo as one of his models for the standardization of modern Italian. Most of his other writing was done in Latin, including "Secretum Meum" ("My Secret Book"), "De Viris Illustribus" ("On Famous Men"), "De Otio Religiosorum" ("On Religious Leisure"), and "De Vita Solitaria" ("On the Solitary Life"). He wrote several other books, a collection of pastoral poetry, an unfinished epic, several invectives, and volumes of his own letters. He was given the honor of poet laureate and is still often given credit for ushering in the Renaissance through his rediscovery of the letters of Cicero and is considered the "Father of Humanism" due to his philosophy established in his "Secretum Meum", which proposed the argument that God's gifts of reason and creativity were meant to be used to their fullest so that humans might achieve great secular works as well as spiritual ones. Furthermore, his poetry became the model for lyrical poetry during the Renaissance and long after, and he initiated the influential phrase and concept of the "Dark Ages" as a reference to the Medieval Era. Whew!

In his account of his climb of Mount Ventoux of France, which he accomplished purely for recreation as opposed to necessity, Plutarch not only popularized mountaineering but also the modern idea of performing an activity purely for aesthetic appreciation and gratification. At the top of the peak and gazing in awe upon the beauty of the Alps, Petrarch took out a copy of Augustine's "Confessions", but what he happened to read there convinced him that as beautiful and sublime as the exernal world can be, the depth and beauty of the human soul is so much more so. Symbolically, his account of his climb and subsequent descent had a tremendous impact on others who understood Petrarch to be not only suggesting the Christian journey or quest for an understanding of the soul but also making the humanist argument that we are constantly looking about us for greatness when in reality it is to be found within ourselves.

The 366 poems of "Il Canzoniere" ("The Songbook") are devoted to Petrarch's admiration and love for a woman named Laura. Though some believe this Laura to have been Laura de Noves, wife of Count Hugues de Sade, there is no evidence provided by history or Petrarch himself of just who this particular Laura was. All that is known for certain is that she was someone he encountered within the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon, that she was married, that she refused his attentions because she was married, and that she died of the plague twenty-one years after the day he first saw her. Petrarch seems to have obsessed over her for all of those years and struggled with letting her go when she died. As he himself wrote of her and her death, "a heavenly spirit, a living sun, / was what I saw; now, if it is not so, / the wound's not healed because the bow grows slack". The Laura, if that was even her real name, that Petrarch describes in his verse is beautiful, but he spends very few words on her physical description. Instead, she is frequently described in a more ethereal, other-worldly manner, if not even as a goddess. Thus, she is often interpreted as unattainable--unreachable--and by extension, she represents the ideal that many of us strive for in this life but never quite achieve. Petrarch's desire for her is often seen as the sruggle humans face as they attempt to reconcile the physical with the nonphysical.

Answer: William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

William Thomson, First Baron of Kelvin, (1824-1907) was born in Belfast, which was very much a city of Ireland and not Northern Ireland at the time. As a child, Lord Kelvin struggled with a heart irregularity from which he nearly died. However, by the age of ten he was attending classes at Glasgow University, and he published his first scientific treatise--"Essay on the Figure of the Earth"--at the age of sixteen. He eventually arrived at Cambridge University, where he established himself not only as a great scientifist but also as a lover of music and literature as well as a celebrated athlete, particularly in sculling.

By 1845, Lord Kelvin had formulated the first mathematical expression of one of Michael Faraday's ideas concerning electricity. Gradually, he became more interested in thermodynamics and helped establish the law of the conservation of energy, which essentially states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only transferred or transformed from one form to another. This, of course, set the stage for the establishment of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. He also embarked on a career as an electric telegraph and undersea cable engineer. His advancements in this field brought him somewhat of a celebrity status as well as substantial wealth, and in 1866, Queen Victoria knighted him for his accomplishments. In 1892, he became the first scientist to be ennobled and was given a place among the House of Lords as Lord Kelvin, a name determined because of the proximity of the River Kelvin to his Glasgow laboratory.

Because of his determination of the correct value of Absolute Zero in degrees of Celsius and Fahrenheit, absolute thermodynamic temperatures are measured in units of kelvin on a Kelvin thermometer, both named for him.

Lord Kelvin is sometimes a controversial figure among contemporary scientists and scholars because of his maverick attitude and claims. For example, he frequently disagreed with Darwin and Huxley, and he made statements that are now known to be outlandish, such as "Physics has come to an end", "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible", "radio has no future", and "X-rays are a hoax".