English

Kelvin's clouds

History and Philosophy of Physics 2021-10-26 v1

Abstract

In 1900 Lord Kelvin identified two problems for 19th century physics, two "clouds" as he puts it: the relative motion of the ether with respect to massive objects, and Maxwell-Boltzmann's theorem on the equipartition of energy. These issues were eventually solved by the theory of special relativity and by quantum mechanics. In modern quotations, the content of Kelvin's lecture is almost always distorted and misrepresented. For example, it is commonly claimed that Kelvin was concerned about the UV-catastrophe of the Rayleigh-Jeans law, while his lecture actually makes no reference at all to blackbody radiation. I rectify these mistakes and explore reasons for their occurrence.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2106.16033,
  title  = {Kelvin's clouds},
  author = {Oliver Passon},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.16033},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

10 pages, no figures. Accepted by the American Journal of Physics

R2 v1 2026-06-24T03:45:51.350Z