William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Irish-Scottish physicist and engineer (born 1824)

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer. Born in Belfast, he was the professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, where he undertook significant research on the mathematical analysis of electricity, was instrumental in the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and contributed significantly to unifying physics, which was then in its infancy of development as an emerging academic discipline. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883 and served as its president from 1890 to 1895. In 1892, he became the first scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords.