Joule_James+P.

 James Prescott Joule By Miranda A.



Biography Education Early Contriubtions Magnetism Thermodynamics Four Laws of Thermodynamics  James Prescott Joule was a British physicist who was famous for his research into electricity and thermodynamics. He was born in Salford, England on Christmas Eve, in the year of 1818. His father and grandfather before him were brewers, and the business descended to Joule and his elder brother and was carried on with success until the business was sold, in 1854. James P. Joules grandfather came from Elton, in Derbyshire, where he founded the business, and then died in the year of 1799 at the age of fifty-four. His father was one of a numerous family. He married a daughter of John Prescott of Wigan. Together, they had five children, of whom John Prescott Joule was the second, along with two other sons, with the names of Benjamin (the oldest), James, and John. There were also two daughters, Alice and Mary. Joule's mother died at the age of forty-eight, in the year of 1836, and his father died at the age of seventy-four, in the year of 1858.  **__ Education __** When Joule was young, he was a delicate child, and he was not sent to school. His early education was taught to him by his mother's half sister, and was carried on at his father's house, in Broomhill, Pendlebury, and was taught to him by tutors til he was about the age of fifteen years. At the age of fifteen, he commenced working in the brewery, and as his father's death declined, the business fell entirely into the hands of himself and his older brother Benjamin.
 * Table of Contents **
 * __ Biography __**

In 1847, James Joule married Amelia Grimes, and together they had two children. On June 8, 1854, another son was born, but died later that month. This was followed by an even greater tradgedy. Within a few months after that, Joule's wife also passed away. He never remarried, but spent the rest of his life with his two children and a variety of different residences near Manchester.  James Prescott Joule obtained his first instruction of physical science from Dalton, to whom his father sent is two brothers to learn chemistry. Dalton is one of the most distinguished chemists of any age or country. He was the President of the Manchester Library and Philosophical Society, and he lived and recieved pupils in the rooms of the Society's house.Under Dalton, Joule first became acquainted with physical apparatus, and almost immediately started experimenting on his own account. Mr Joule obtained a room in his fathers house for this purpose. He began by constructing a cylinder electric machine in a very primitive way. A glass tube is served for the cylinder, a poker held up by silk threads, and as in the very oldest forms of an electric machine, was the prime conductor, and then for a Leyden jar he went back to the old historical jar of Cunaeus. Joule also used a bottle half filled with water, standing in an outer vessel, which also contained water.
 * __ Early Contributions and Inventions __**

Joule soon entered the ranks of an investigator, and origional papers followed each other in quick succession, due to enlarging his stock of apparatus, and mainly by the work of his own hands. The Royal Society list now contains the titles of ninety-seven papers due to Joule, and exclusive of over twenty very important papers that detail researchers undertaken between him and Thomas, with Lyon Playfair, and with Scoresby.

 James P. Joule's first investigation was the field of magnetism. When he was at the age of nineteen, in 1838, Joule constructed an electro-magnetic engine which was described in Strurgeon's "Annals of Electricity". Within the three years following, Joule also constructed other electro-magnetic machines and electro-magnets of novel forms. While experimenting with the new apparatus, he obtained results of importance in the theory of electro-magnetism. In 1840, James Joule discovered and determined the value of the limit to the magnetization communicable to soft iron by the electric current. It shows for the case of an electro-magnet supporting weight, that when the existing current is made stronger and stronger, that the sustaining power tends to a certain definite limit. And according to his estimiate, this amounts to about 140 lb. per square inch of either one of the opposite attracting surfaces.
 * __ Magnetism __**

 The principle of energy conservation involved in James Joule's work gave a rise to the new scientific discipline known as thermodynamics. Although Joule was not the first to suggest the new principle, he was the first to demonstrate it. Thermodynamics is the study of conversion of energy into work and heat and it's relation to macroscopic variables such as temperature and pressure. It was born in the 19th century as scientists were first discovering how to build and operate steam engines. Under the description of thermodynamics, there are four different laws:  __** Four Laws of Thermodynamics ** The Zeroth Law__- which underlines the definition of temperature.
 * __ Thermodynamics __**

__The first law of thermodynamics__- which mandates conservation of energy, and states that heat is a form of energy.

__The second law of thermodynamics__- which states that the entropy of the universe always increases, or that perpetual motion machines are impossible.

__The third law of dynamics__- which concerns the entropy of an object at absolute zero of temperature, and implies that it is impossible to cool a system to exactly absolute zero