Science and Scientists
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Science and Scientists’
Sir Isaac’s secretary has left us an engaging portrait of a kindly genius, the absent-minded professor of our fancy.
In 1685, Sir Isaac Newton engaged a secretary to help him with his increasing workload, a Mr Humphrey Newton who was, it seems, no relation of the great mathematician. Many years later John Conduitt, Newton’s successor as Master of the Mint and also the great man’s nephew by marriage, asked Humphrey to supply him with his recollections of Sir Isaac.
When Archimedes discovered the principle of displacement, he was hot on the trail of a clever fraud.
Hiero II (?308 BC – 215 BC), ruler of Syracuse in Sicily (an ancient Greek colony), made a present of a golden crown to a temple in honour of the gods. The crown was commissioned and duly delivered, but Hiero suspected that the craftsman had kept some of the gold and mixed in some lesser metal. So he turned to a relative of his, the mathematican Archimedes, and asked him to do some detective work.
Sir Humphry Davy explains in simple terms what it is that leads to scientific progress.
In 1812, research chemist and popular lecturer Humphry Davy was knighted for his services to Science. In that same year, he published an overview of his discipline, Elements of Chemical Philosophy, and prefaced it with an introduction to the basics of the new scientific method. There were, he said, three essential components to it.
The steering committee for the Great Exhibition of 1851 turned down all 245 designs submitted for the iconic venue.
Sir Joseph Paxton, a consultant to the Duke of Devonshire, was the man who designed the ‘Crystal Palace,’ the enormous cast iron and glass conservatory that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851 seen by over six million people. Not only was the design groundbreaking, but the way Paxton brought it to the attention of the Building Committee was decidedly modern too.
After Joseph Paxton won the competition to design the venue for the Great Exhibition of 1851, he recalled how his rival had helped him.
In 1851, the Great Exhibition opened in the groundbreaking Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton (1803-1865). The decision to run with Paxton’s innovative concept was taken at the last minute, and was a disappointment to Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), who was hoping his Great Dome would become a London landmark. Paxton tells us Brunel behaved like a gentleman throughout.
Alexander Graham Bell was heading for a dead end when a broken component showed him the way.
In 1875, Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman working with deaf children in Boston, MA, had rigged up a complex apparatus to transmit sound by electric current. As his assistant Thomas Watson recalled, all was disappointment until one day a tiny contact jammed.