John Mudge
John Mudge (* 1721 in Bideford ; † March 26, 1793 ) was an English doctor and amateur astronomer in Plymouth . He became known through material studies and mirror grinding for telescopes and received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society for it in 1777 .
As the fourth son of the priest Zachariah Mudge, he was supposed to go to London, but stayed in Plymouth, where he later practiced as a doctor. His circle of friends and acquaintances included Sir Joshua Reynolds , the astronomer James Ferguson and the painter James Northcote .
Metal mirrors for telescopes
Mudge was one of the first to examine various metal alloys for their suitability for grinding metal mirrors . The most suitable alloy he received was copper - tin bronze in a ratio of 2: 1, while Newton recommended 3: 1. He also shared his experience in telescope construction with the mathematician and optician James Short . For the universal scholar John Michell , he built a particularly bright, short reflector telescope with an aperture ratio of 1: 4 and a focal length of 10 feet, whose operation (unlike Herschel's much longer telescopes with 1:10 to 1:20) did not require any assistants.
In 1776 he submitted his metallurgical-optical study Directions for making the best Composition for the Metals for reflecting Telescopes to the Royal Society ; together with a Description of the Process for Grinding, Polishing, and giving the great Speculum the true Parabolic Curve for the production of parabolic mirrors , which was published in 1777 in the Philosophical Transactions . The academy awarded him the Copley Medal in 1777 and accepted him as a fellow in their circle.
Mudge devoted most of his free time to constructing reflector telescopes . He built the two largest instruments with over 200x magnification for Hans Moritz von Brühl , who gave them to the Gotha observatory , and for his son William Mudge .
Medical research
In 1777 he published about a vaccination against smallpox , based on previous work by Richard Mead : Dissertation on the Inoculated Small Pox, or an Attempt towards an Investigation of the real Causes which render the Small Pox by Inoculation so much more mild and safe then the same disease when produced by the ordinary means of infection. In 1778 the publication A Radical and Expeditious Cure for recent Catarrhous Cough followed . The inhaler described therein was widely used.
family
Mudge was married three times and had 20 children, eight of them with his first wife, Mary Bulteel. When his second wife Jane died in 1766, he married Elizabeth Garrett (1736-1808) the following year. Her sons William Mudge and Zachary Mudge are from her .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mudge memoirs (1883), p. 82 @ archive.org, accessed November 17, 2014
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mudge, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English doctor and amateur astronomer in Plymouth |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1721 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bideford |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 26, 1793 |