William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

About William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907), was a towering figure in 19th-century physics and engineering, recognized globally by his HPI Rank of #627. His extensive contributions spanned thermodynamics, where he developed the absolute temperature scale now named the Kelvin scale, and vast practical applications, including significant work on the transatlantic telegraph cable. Kelvin’s intellectual reach was profound, solidifying his place among history's most influential scientific minds.

Despite this historical weight, Lord Kelvin's contemporary internet attention lags considerably behind his importance. His 81K annualized Wikipedia views in 2025 place him in a clear state of underattention, yielding an Attention Gap of -4x compared to his historical standing. To put this in perspective, the significantly less important Christiaan Huygens (#875 vs #627) captures nearly three times his traffic with 221K views, illustrating a substantial modern disconnect from this foundational physicist.

Furthermore, the interest shown in Kelvin appears to be actively waning; his 2025 traffic is down 13.2% year-over-year, and his recent momentum from Q1 to Q3 has dropped by 8%, suggesting a continuous decline in his visibility on the modern web.