Portrait of James Prescott Joule

Birthday profile

James Prescott Joule

James Prescott Joule, English physicist and brewer (died 1889)

Born
December 24, 1818
Died
October 11, 1889
Zodiac sign
Capricorn
Birth year
1818

About James Prescott Joule

James Prescott Joule (; 24 December 1818 – 11 October 1889) was an English physicist. Joule studied the nature of heat and discovered its relationship to mechanical work. This led to the law of conservation of energy, which in turn led to the development of the first law of thermodynamics. The SI unit of energy, the joule (J), is named after him. He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, which came to be called the Kelvin scale. Joule also made observations of magnetostriction, and he found the relationship between the current through a resistor and the heat dissipated, which is also called Joule's first law. His experiments about energy transformations were first published in 1843.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when James Prescott Joule was born

James Prescott Joule was born in 1818. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1818

  • Best-selling bookFrankenstein by Mary Shelley

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineUS-Canada border established at 49th parallel
  • Technology milestoneFirst blood transfusion using human blood
  • World population~990M

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderJames Monroe
  • U.S. population9.1M

1818 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in James Prescott Joule's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18182026
Population9.1M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

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