Thermodynamics and Sources of Solar Heat, 1846–1862

Abstract

In 1859 Charles Darwin in chapter nine of the Origin of Species showed how he had calculated that the age of the Weald was three hundred million years and that consequently the age of the earth was considerably greater than that. Darwin of course needed such a long period of time for the process of evolution by natural selection to occur. Arguments which showed that the earth could not be that old would therefore cast serious doubt on his theory. Such views were advanced in 1862 by William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow. He specifically challenged the result of Darwin's calculation of the age of the Weald by arguing that the sun could not have emitted its heat and light for that length of time. The consequences of this assertion for the biological and geological sciences for the remainder of the nineteenth century have already been delineated by Burchfield. What I wish to do in this paper is to show that the theoretical basis of Thomson's 1862 assertion had not been specifically developed as a response to Darwin, but that it was a consequence of the formulation of the first two laws of thermodynamics. I shall also show that Thomson's work was not done in isolation but that the question of the maintenance of solar energy was a serious concern of a number of physicists who had formulated the laws of thermodynamics.