John Tyndall

John Tyndall [ dʒɒn ˈtɪndl ] (born August 2, 1820 in Leighlinbridge , County Carlow , Ireland , United Kingdom ; † December 4, 1893 in Hindhead, Surrey , United Kingdom) was a surveyor and naturalist . Among other things, he investigated the light scattering in cloudy media and found the Tyndall effect . Tyndall was also one of the Matterhorn's mountain pioneers . Together with Edward Whymper and Jean-Antoine Carrel , he persistently tried to conquer this, in the opinion of contemporaries, “impassable” mountain. With Johann Joseph Benet and Ulrich Wenger, he made the first ascent of the neighboring Weisshorn in 1861 .

Life

Photograph by John Tyndall (right)

Tyndall was the son of a police officer. He received only a normal school education and was not allowed to study at a university until his early 30s. He left school at the age of 19 to work for the Irish Ordnance Survey for several years from 1840 . He was then in 1844 by a company in Manchester hired to survey for the railway to perform.

In 1847 he took a position as a math teacher at Queenswood College in Hampshire , where he became acquainted with the chemist Edward Frankland . With this Tyndall went to the Philipps University of Marburg in 1848 , where he was now allowed to study formally for the first time. They were joined a little later by the mathematician Thomas Archer Hirst . Tyndall spoke little German and did not have a solid background in the natural sciences either, so he first took the basics of mathematics, physics and chemistry. It was Robert Bunsen who, with a lot of patience and inspiration, helped Tyndall get a doctorate .

In 1859 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . On August 19, 1861, Tyndall, together with the mountain guides Johann Josef Benet and Ulrich Wenger, made the first ascent of the Weisshorn from Randa .

Scientific work

He began his scientific career with Friedrich Stegmann in Marburg with studies in the field of diamagnetism and magneto-optical properties of crystals . He stayed longer in Germany and went to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin for a year with Gustav Magnus .

In 1851 he returned to England, but was unable to make a living from his research there. So he went back to Queenwood College to teach and translate and edit scientific literature. The turning point in his academic career came in 1853 when he was invited to a lecture by the Royal Institution of Great Britain . Tyndall made this so successful that he was obliged to give further lectures and soon held an entire course. Three months later he became a professor of natural history and he was showered with offers. Tyndall chose the Royal Institution because there he could work with Michael Faraday .

Tyndall developed numerous show experiments such as the bolt sprinkler for teaching. He was particularly committed to imparting knowledge to non-academically educated audiences. On various lecture tours through the USA and the UK he filled large halls.

The subject of his research was, among other things, the theory of germs . He developed a process that made food more durable by heating the substance to 100 ° C several times in succession and then cooling it back to 30 ° C, known today as tyndallization .

In addition, he also researched glacier movements , as well as the scattering and absorption of light in the atmosphere . In order to better explore glaciers, he undertook a trip to Switzerland with Thomas Henry Huxley in 1856 , the results of which he presented in a paper with the latter. In January 1859 he noted the winter advance of the Mer de Glace . In his search for the causes of the past ice ages, he was not only the first to put a change in the concentration of the greenhouse gases water vapor and carbon dioxide up for discussion, but also made specific measurements with the help of which he could identify the gases responsible for the natural greenhouse effect .

Tyndall showed that ozone is an amalgamation of several oxygen atoms . He improved the fog horn and invented the breathing apparatus for fire departments . His most significant invention was the light guide , which led to the development of fiber optics . The most modern version of his discovery, the gastroscope , is used in gastroscopy . Tyndall was also a popular lecturer targeting not only professionals but the public as well. He also coined the term acoustic cloud , which is no longer in use today .

John Tyndall retired in 1887 and died on December 4, 1893 at his Hind Head estate near Haslemere as a result of an accidental overdose of chloral hydrate , which he used to combat his insomnia.

Honors

In 1853 he was awarded the Royal Medal by the Royal Society .

1857 Elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

1869 Foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences

The southwest shoulder of the Matterhorn , which he climbed for the first time in 1862, is named after him, Pic Tyndall, and his wife erected a memorial to him on Belalp in 1911 .

The asteroid (22694) Tyndall was named after him.

The lunar crater Tyndall is named after him.

The John Tyndall Award is named in his honor.

The Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research is named after him.

The Tyndall Mountains in Antarctica bear his name.

The Tyndall National Institute in Cork , Ireland , was named after him.

Fonts

The screw surface with the inclined generation line and the conditions of equilibrium for such screws. Inaugural dissertation submitted with the approval of the Philosophical Faculty of Marburg to obtain the doctorate. Johann Tyndall. Marburg. Elwert'sche University printing house. 1850. (14 pages; PhD supervisor: Friedrich Stegmann )
The glaciers of the Alps . London (1860)
Contributions to molecular physics . London (1872)
Lectures on sound . London (1867)
On light . London (1873)
Tyndall, John: The light. Six lectures / given in America during the winter of 1872–1873. Authorized German edition, ed. by Gustav Wiedemann. Braunschweig: F. Vieweg 1876, 275 p., 1 portrait as a frontispiece, wood engravings in the text. ( Digitized version )
Tyndall, John: Electrical Phenomena and Theories . Translated into German by Joseph v. Rusthorn ; A. Hartleben's publishing house, Vienna / Pest / Leipzig 1884.
Heat as a mode of motion . London (1863). In German: The heat viewed as a kind of movement , Authorized German edition published by H. Helmholtz and G. Wiedemann after the second edition of the original, F. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1867 ( digitized version )
Forms of water in clouds and rivers, ice and glaciers . London (1873)
On radiation . London (1865)
On diamagnetism . London (1870)
Notes of a course of seven lectures on electrical phenomena . London (1870)
Lessons on electricity . London (1876)
Natural philosophy in easy lessons . London (1869)
Faraday as a discoverer . London (1868)
Notes of Professor Tyndall's lectures on ice, water, vapor, and air . London (1871/1872)
Fragments. New episode by John Tyndall. Translated by Anna von Helmholtz and Estelle Du Bois-Reymond. Braunschweig 1895. [contains, inter alia, comments on Robert Bunsen and Tyndall's stay in Marburg].
Fragments from the natural sciences. Lectures and essays, Braunschweig 1874. Authorized German edition. With foreword and additions by Prof. H. Helmholtz, ISBN 978-3-941919-12-9 , e-book (facsimile) from the original, PDF file, Verlag Becker, Potsdam 2009

Web links

Commons : John Tyndall - album with pictures, videos and audio files

John Tyndall Nekrolog (with list of publications), in LEOPOLDINA Official Organ , year 1894
Worldcat.org: Books by John Tyndall in German in the Worldcat.org catalog
Literature by and about John Tyndall in the catalog of the German National Library
The legacy of John Tyndall in aerosol science doi : 10.1016 / 0021-8502 (96) 00324-2

Individual evidence

↑ Description of the Weisshorn on Zermatt.ch, accessed on August 7, 2018
^ D. Thompson, John Tyndall (1820-1893), a study in vocational enterprise , The Vocational Aspect of Education, 1957, Volume 9, Issue 18, pp. 38-48, doi : 10.1080 / 03057875780000061
↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 243.
↑ See Neue Zürcher Zeitung of June 17, 2011: We stood on the dreaded Weisshorn .
↑ Among many hundreds of lectures that Tyndall gave to non-academic audiences at the Royal Institution, he gave the annual Christmas lecture for young audiences at the Royal Institution in 1861, 1863, 1865, 1867, 1869, 1871, 1873, 1875, 1877, 1879, 1882 and 1884 on the subject of light ; Electricity at rest and in motion ; Sound ; Heat and cold ; Ice, water, steam and air ; Movement and sound perception ; Experimental electricity ; Warmth, visible and invisible ; Water and air ; Light and the Eye and The Sources of Electricity . Appendix A at REF lists subject areas of other lecture series for non-experts by Tyndall at the Royal Institution over the years.
^ Spencer Weart: The Discovery of Global Warming , Center of History at the American Institute of Physics Online
^ Member entry of John Tyndall at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 18, 2016.
^ Carl von Voit : John Tyndall (obituary) . In: Meeting reports of the mathematical-physical class of the KB Academy of Sciences in Munich . tape 24 , 1894, pp. 143–146 ( online [PDF; accessed May 3, 2017]).
^ Website of the Tyndall National Institute

personal data
SURNAME	Tyndall, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Irish physicist; was the first to explain why the sky is blue (Tyndall effect)
DATE OF BIRTH	August 2, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH	Leighlin Bridge, County Carlow
DATE OF DEATH	4th December 1893
Place of death	Hindhead, Surrey

[1] Description of the Weisshorn on Zermatt.ch, accessed on August 7, 2018

[2] D. Thompson, John Tyndall (1820-1893), a study in vocational enterprise , The Vocational Aspect of Education, 1957, Volume 9, Issue 18, pp. 38-48, doi : 10.1080 / 03057875780000061

[3] Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 243.

[4] See Neue Zürcher Zeitung of June 17, 2011: We stood on the dreaded Weisshorn .

[5] Among many hundreds of lectures that Tyndall gave to non-academic audiences at the Royal Institution, he gave the annual Christmas lecture for young audiences at the Royal Institution in 1861, 1863, 1865, 1867, 1869, 1871, 1873, 1875, 1877, 1879, 1882 and 1884 on the subject of light ; Electricity at rest and in motion ; Sound ; Heat and cold ; Ice, water, steam and air ; Movement and sound perception ; Experimental electricity ; Warmth, visible and invisible ; Water and air ; Light and the Eye and The Sources of Electricity . Appendix A at REF lists subject areas of other lecture series for non-experts by Tyndall at the Royal Institution over the years.

[6] Spencer Weart: The Discovery of Global Warming , Center of History at the American Institute of Physics Online

[7] Member entry of John Tyndall at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 18, 2016.

[8] Carl von Voit : John Tyndall (obituary) . In: Meeting reports of the mathematical-physical class of the KB Academy of Sciences in Munich . tape 24 , 1894, pp. 143–146 ( online [PDF; accessed May 3, 2017]).

[9] Website of the Tyndall National Institute