Christmas is said to be the time for remembering old friends and judging by the number of cards I received from people that I haven’t seen for a while, that is possibly true.

Of all the names that spring to mind, the name William Thomson is probably not high on many people’s list, including my own it has to be said. Even if I said that he was better known as Lord Kelvin, it probably still isn’t a name that would be associated with the festive season.

However, 2007 was the centenary of his death, on December 17th 1907, and a commemorative stone was unveiled at Glasgow’s Necropolis to mark the occasion.

William Thomson was one of the UK’s greatest mathematicians, scientists and engineers. He was greatly interested in the theory of conservation of energy and the mechanical equivalent of heat, a field in which he collaborated closely with James Prescott Joule, as for example in the Joule-Thomson Effect. He developed the idea of an absolute scale of temperature, of vital importance to the study of thermodynamics, in which the interval is the ‘Kelvin’ symbol ‘K’, named in his honour and equal to 1˚C Celsius, so that K = ˚ C + 273. He also explained the use of the Carnot cycle in relation to the heat pump and the refrigerator.

However, even great men sometimes make mistakes and he is famously quoted as predicting that “Radio has no future” and that “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”.

Perhaps most surprisingly, he described himself as a ‘failure’ despite the fact that he produced some 600 scientific papers, took out 70 patents for inventions, received honours bestowed by 250 academics and societies and amassed the sum of £160,000, a fortune in those days.

His legacy to the science of refrigeration was immense and whilst I don’t expect that he will be one of one the ‘auld acquaintances’ brought to mind as we sing in the new year, his contribution and those of many others to our industry today is a worthwhile sentiment that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Happy New Year.