Wednesday 17 December 2014

This polymath chemist who invented numerous elements thanked for being left to himself & hired Faraday as a co-worker!!!



Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a Cornish chemist and inventor. He is best remembered today for his discoveries of several alkali and alkaline earth metals, as well as contributions to the discoveries of the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Berzelius called Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry." He was a 1st Baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), and Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS). Davy was a pioneer in the field of electrolysis using the voltaic pile to split common compounds and thus prepare many new elements.

Davy was also a painter and three of his paintings dating from circa 1796 have been donated to the Penlee House museum at Penzance. Davy's first production preserved bears the date of 1795. It is entitled The Sons of Genius, and is marked by the usual immaturity of youth.
Davy conceived of using an iron gauze to enclose a lamp's flame, and so prevent the methane burning inside the lamp from passing out to the general atmosphere(used in mines). Read more & watch the video...