William Thomson, first Baron Kelvin (1824–1907), is best known for devising the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature and for his work on the first and second laws of thermodynamics, though throughout his 53-year career as a mathematical physicist and engineer at the University of Glasgow he investigated a wide range of scientific questions in areas ranging from geology to transatlantic telegraph cables. The extent of his work is revealed in the six volumes of his Mathematical and Physical Papers, published from 1882 until 1911, consisting of articles that appeared in scientific periodicals from 1841 onwards. Volume 4, published in 1910, includes articles from the period 1867–1906. Themes covered in this book examine issues relating to water, such as hydrodynamics, tidal theory and deep sea ship waves.

Table of Contents:
Hydrodynamics: 1. On vortex atoms; 2. On vortex motion; 3. The translatory velocity of a circular vortex ring; 4. On the motion of free solids through a liquid; 5. Influence of wind and capillarity on waves in water supposed frictionless; 6. Ripples and waves; 7. On the forces experienced by solids immersed in a moving liquid; 8. On attractions and repulsions due to vibration; 9. On the motion of rigid solids in a liquid circulating irrotationally through perforations in them or in a fixed solid; 10. Vortex statics; 11. On the precessional motion of a liquid; 12. Floating magnets; 13. On gravitational oscillations of rotating water; 14. On the formation of coreless vortices by the motion of a solid through an inviscid incompressible fluid; 15. Vibrations of a columnar vortex; 16. On the stability of steady and of periodic fluid motion; 17. On a disturbing infinity in Lord Rayleigh's solution for waves in a plane vortex stratum; 18. On the average pressure due to impulse of vortex-rings on a solid; 19. On the figures of equilibrium of a rotating mass of fluid; 20. On the motion of a liquid within an ellipsoidal hollow; 21. On the stability and small oscillation of a perfect liquid full of nearly straight coreless vortices; 22. Towards the efficiency of sails, windmills, screw-propellers in water and air, and aeroplanes; 23. On the resistance of a fluid to a plane kept moving uniformly in a direction inclined to it at a small angle; 24. On the motion of a heterogeneous liquid, commencing from rest with a given motion of its boundary; 25. On the doctrine of discontinuity of fluid motion, in connection with the resistance against a solid moving through a fluid; Theory of the Tides: 26. On an alleged error in Laplace's Theory of the Tides; 27. Note on the 'Oscillations of the First Species' in Laplace's Theory of the Tides; 28. General integration of Laplace's differential equation of the tides; Waves on Water: 29. On stationary waves in flowing water; 30. On the waves produced by a single impulse in water of any depth, or in a dispersive medium; 31. On the front and rear of a free procession of waves in deep water; 32. On ship waves; 33. On the propagation of laminar motion through a turbulently moving inviscid liquid; 34. Rectilineal motion of viscous fluid between two parallel planes; 35. On deep-water two-dimensional waves produced by any given initiating disturbance; 36. On the front and rear of a free procession of waves in deep water; 37. Deep water ship-waves; 38. Deep sea ship-waves; 39. Initiation of deep-sea waves of three classes. 1. from a single displacement, 2. from a group of equal and similar displacements, 3. by a periodically varying surface-pressure; 40. Physical explanation of the mackerel sky; General Dynamics: 41. On some kinematical and dynamical theorems; 42. On a new form of centrifugal governor; 43. On a new astronomical clock, and a pendulum governor for uniform motion; 44. On the perturbation of the compass produced by the rolling of the ship; 45. On a new form of astronomical clock with free pendulum and independently governed uniform motion for escapement-wheel; 46. Elasticity viewed as possibly a mode of motion; 47. Steps towards a kinetic theory of matter; 48. On a gyrostatic working model of the magnetic compass; 49. Gyrostatic experiments; 50. On some test cases for the Maxwell-Boltzmann doctrine regarding distribution of energy; 51. On a decisive test-case disproving the Maxwell-Boltzmann doctrine distribution of kinetic energy; 52. On periodic motion of a finite conservative system; 53. On a theorem in plane kinetic trigonometry suggested by Gauss's theorem of curvatura integra; 54. On the stability of periodic motion; 55. On graphic solution of dynamical problems; 56. Reduction of every problem of two freedoms in conservative dynamics to the drawing of geodetic lines on a surface of giv