Excerpt from Mathematical and Physical Papers, Vol. 5 It has been introduced that the present volume should complete the collected edition of Lord Kelvin's Scientific Papers. It was soon found, however, that extensive omissions would be necessary in order to compress the remaining papers into this space; and eventually it was decided to run on into a sixth volume, on the ground that material of inferior direct importance would be valuable to the historical student in obtaining a view of the progress of knowledge. Thus it is mainly on this ground that the sub-section headed "Electrical Contributions to Engineering Societies," pp. 541-595, consisting largely of excerpts from the reported discussions at the "Society of Telegraph Engineers," now the "Institution of Electrical Engineers," has been included in the reprint. There remain over for the sixth volume the later papers on Electrionic Theory and Radio-activity, including cognate papers of the same period on Voltaic Phenomena, and also some supplementary matter. The present volume begins with a section on Thermodynamics in the wider sense of that term. It has been thought desirable to reprint some material, in part controversial (cf. pp. 1-10, and 38-46), which Lord Kelvin had himself omitted in its own earlier connexion. Looking back, we can now recognize that there is ample room for all the illustrious names which are associated with the historical development of this subject, and that their independent efforts, when placed in full light of comparison, give a richer texture and a more human interest to the great fundamental advance in our outlook upon nature with which they were concerned. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Part of the reissued Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences series, this book was first published in 1983, and has swiftly become one of the great modern classics of relativity theory. It represents a personal testament to the work of the author, who spent several years writing and working-out the entire subject matter. The theory of black holes is the most simple and beautiful consequence of Einstein's relativity theory. At the time of writing there was no physical evidence for the existence of these objects, therefore all that Professor Chandrasekhar used for their construction were modern mathematical concepts of space and time. Since that time a growing body of evidence has pointed to the truth of Professor Chandrasekhar's findings, and the wisdom contained in this book has become fully evident.

Scientific knowledge grows at a phenomenal pace--but few books have had as lasting an impact or played as important a role in our modern world as The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published originally as a paper on communication theory more than fifty years ago. Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic.

Vols. for 1980- issued in three parts: Series, Authors, and Titles.

A new and comprehensive examination of the history of the modern physical and mathematical sciences.

Eight essays trace seminal ideas about the foundations of geometry that led to the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity. This is the only English-language collection of these important papers, some of which are extremely hard to find. Contributors include Helmholtz, Klein, Clifford, Poincaré, and Cartan.