Abel Watt

Abel Watt taught evening classes in a hall that smelled of coal and chalk. He measured how a lamp loses heat when the glass is thinner than a page. The first paper was rejected for being too short. He sent it again with one extra sentence and the journal kept that sentence as the title.

Discoveries

Newest first.

Thin-glass lamp law

· Physics

A note on how heat leaves a lamp when the glass is thinner than a page.

Evening-class calorimeter

· Physics

A cheap box that students could build from tin and string.

Chalk-dust conductivity

· Physics

Why a blackboard stays cold after an hour of writing.