Viral Glasgow Plaque Tells Fake Story About Absolute Zero Discovery
What Happened
The plaque, photographed and shared on Atlas Obscura, tells an absurd tale: On a cold winter night in 1845, young William Thomson was returning from drinking at a local pub when he tripped and fell into the river. According to the fictional account, this mishap made him “the coldest thing in the entire universe,” inspiring him to create the Kelvin temperature scale to quantify his frigid experience.
The satirical monument claims to mark the “180th anniversary of this fortuitous event” and credits the non-existent Lord Kelvin Appreciation Society for its installation in 2025.