James Joule (1818-1889) was one of the greatest physicists of the 1800’s. His passion was to study the nature of heat and established its relationship to mechanical work. His experiments laid the foundation for the theory of the conservation of energy, which later helped lead to the establishment of the First Law of Thermodynamics. He established that the various forms of energy—mechanical, electrical, and heat—are basically the same and can be changed from one form into another. His work clearly established that heat and mechanical work are both forms of energy.
In addition to being a great scientist and experimenter Joule was a sincere Christian, who exhibited great patience and humility in both his scientific pursuits and personal life.
Joule is a perfect example that genius does not need formal education. When his father became ill, James and his brother both took over running the family brewery business, and as a result he couldn’t attend university. According to Ann Lamont: “However, his great desire was to continue to study science, so he set up a laboratory in his home and began experimenting before and after work each day. James saw this desire to study science as a natural consequence of his Christian faith. As he later wrote, ‘it is evident that an acquaintance with natural laws means no less than an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed.’”1
Joule, like many scientists, had his ideas and theories not well accepted at first. Throughout the 1840’s Joule presented several papers on his work but the various British scientific societies that reviewed them were not very accepting of his conclusions. But as providence would have it the great physicist Michael Faraday lent his endorsement to Joule’s controversial work. Again, Lamont shares: “The Royal Society was now prepared to give him another hearing. In 1849, Joule read his paper entitled ‘On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat’ to the Royal Society, with Faraday as his sponsor. In the following year, the Royal Society published Joule’s paper and he was elected a member of its prestigious ranks.”2
The thing that gets me excited is that it’s amazing how many Christian scientists influenced Joule along the way in his scientific pursuits. For example, it is well known that Michael Faraday was a sincere Christian. Another devout Christian who took an interest in Joule’s work was William Thompson (Lord Kelvin). In fact, Joule and Thompson collaborated on the formulation of the absolute scale of temperature. And during his teen years young Joule “was taught chemistry, physics, the scientific method, and mathematics by the famous English chemist John Dalton. (Like James Joule, Dalton was a Bible-believing Christian.)”3 Dalton today is known as the father of modern atomic theory.
Joule believed that the study of science flowed naturally from his Christian faith. He once said: “After the knowledge of, and obedience to, the will of God, the next aim must be to know something of His attributes of wisdom, power, and goodness as evidenced by His handiwork.”4
Today Joule can be considered the chief founder of thermodynamics as a scientific discipline. His Christian faith obviously had a profound impact on his scientific discoveries; for which we owe him a great debt of gratitude.