Born in Leighlinbridge in Ireland, John Tyndall (1820 93) was a brilliant nineteenth-century experimental physicist and gifted science educator. He worked initially as a draughtsman, then spent a year teaching at an English school before attending the University of Marburg to study physics and chemistry. Tyndall carried out important research on magnetism, light and bacteriology. Among his many significant achievements, he demonstrated the greenhouse effect in Earth's atmospheric gases using absorption spectroscopy. He was a skilled and entertaining educator and as Professor of Natural...

Born in Leighlinbridge in Ireland, John Tyndall (1820 93) was a brilliant nineteenth-century experimental physicist and gifted science educator. He worked initially as a draughtsman, then spent a year teaching at an English school before attending the University of Marburg to study physics and chemistry. Tyndall carried out important research on magnetism, light and bacteriology. Among his many significant achievements, he demonstrated the greenhouse effect in Earth's atmospheric gases using absorption spectroscopy. He was a skilled and entertaining educator and as Professor of Natural...

Sir Humphry Davy (1778 1829) was a hugely influential chemist, inventor, and public lecturer who is recognised as one of the first professional scientists. His apprenticeship to an apothecary in 1795 led to his introduction to chemical experiments. A chance meeting with Davis Giddy in 1798 introduced Davy into the wider scientific community, and in 1800 he was invited to a post at the Royal Institution, where he lectured to great acclaim. This two-volume memoir was published by his brother, Dr John Davy, in 1836, in response to Paris' biography of 1831, authorised by Lady Davy (also reissued...

Sir Humphry Davy (1778 1829) was a hugely influential chemist, inventor, and public lecturer who is recognised as one of the first professional scientists. His apprenticeship to an apothecary in 1795 led to his introduction to chemical experiments. A chance meeting with Davis Giddy in 1798 introduced Davy into the wider scientific community, and in 1800 he was invited to a post at the Royal Institution, where he lectured to great acclaim. This two-volume memoir was published by his brother, Dr John Davy, in 1836, in response to Paris' biography of 1831, authorised by Lady Davy (also reissued...

Used to describe both binary systems and optical doubles, the term 'double star' has been familiar to astronomers since the seventeenth century. This book, first published in 1879, outlines the history of their study, and describes the methods and equipment needed in order to observe the fascinating phenomenon. Written for non-specialists by Fellows of the Royal Society Edward Crossley (1841 1904), Joseph Gledhill (1837 1906) and James M. Wilson (1836 1931), the catalogue of over 1,200 double stars appears beside detailed notes and does not assume mathematical expertise. Also offered are a...

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...

James Croll (1821 90) was self-educated, but on gaining a post at the Glagow Andersonian Museum had the time to explore his academic interests. Despite his lack of formal training, he quickly became a leading light of the Scottish Royal Geological Society. Using physics, mathematics, geology and geography he explored the pressing scientific questions of the time. In this, his final book, published in 1889, Croll divides his focus between 'the probable origin of meteorites, comets and nebulae', the age of the sun and the impact of the pre-nebular condition of the universe on star evolution....

This first book by James Croll (1821 90), published in 1875, includes many of the original geophysical theories that he had formulated throughout the early years of his career. A self-educated amateur, Croll obtained work at the Glasgow Andersonian Museum, which gave him leisure time to pursue his scientific interests. The fluidity of scientific disciplines at the time allowed him to virtually invent the field of geophysics, and his unique insights united ideas previously thought unconnected, such as using physics to explore the causes of the glacial epochs, climatic changes and the...

Robert Fitzroy (1805 65) is best remembered as the commander of HMS Beagle who took on Charles Darwin as the Ship's naturalist, but his most important scientific contribution was probably the establishment of the Meteorological Office in 1854. Convinced that falling barometric pressure was an indicator of storms, he had barometers set up at ports around the coast, so that boats would be aware of impending bad weather, and later had reports telegraphed to his office in London for collation; he invented the term 'forecasting the weather'. This work, published in 1863, gives an account of...

The discovery in 1897 of the electron, the first subatomic particle, led to rapid advances in our knowledge of atomic structure, the solid state, radioactivity and chemistry. It also raised major questions. Was the electron point-like or did it have structure? Was there a positive electron? What did the positive part of the atom look like? Did a hydrogen atom have one electron or a thousand? Published in 1906, this expository account by leading physicist Sir Oliver Lodge (1851 1940) examines the spectacular phenomena of cathode rays in evacuated tubes, the fixed units of charge observed in...