Item 147 - James David Forbes to William Whewell

4 pp

Pitlochry, Perthshire - Has WW seen in the Philosophical Magazine for July, August and September a controversy involving John Tyndall and James Joule over 'a question of priority, much resembling Tyndall's advocacy of Rendu at my expense?' The dispute centres on the ''Dynamical theory of heat' or the 'convertibility of force' and the meteonic theory of the sun's heat'. Tyndall gives the credit of these theories to 'an unknown German physician named Mayer'. William Thomson and Joule 'are treated a good deal in the way I was'. Both have written replies, Joule in the Philosophical Magazine and Thomson in the Glasgow periodical called 'Good Words'. JDF gives a long quote from Thomson's piece.