#James Rumford

[rbolick]

Books On Books Collection - Nayla Romanos Iliya

The Phoenician Alphabet (2022) The Phoenician Alphabet (2022) Nayla Romanos Iliya (art), Rose Issa, Susan Babaie and Peter Murray (text)Casebound laminated cover. H205 x W185 mm. 108 pages. Acquired from Les presses du réel, 2 February 2023. Photos: Books On Books Collection. Herodotus first put forward the historical account that Cadmos, a prince from Byblos in today’s Lebanon, brought the…

[scotianostra]

Balfour Stewart, the Scottish meteorologist and geophysicist was born on November 1st 1828 in Edinburgh.

Described as “an intellectually precocious child”, Stewart entered St-Andrews University at age thirteen, subsequently transferring to the University of Edinburgh to study natural philosophy. Bending to parental pressures, upon graduating he embarked on business, which he however abandoned and return to the University of Edinburgh in 1853 as an assistant to the noted physicist and glaciologist Professor James David Forbes.

In 1859 he became Director of Kew Observatory, where he remained until 1870, and finished his career as Porfessor of Physics at Owens College in Manchester. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1862, awarded their Rumford Medal in 1868, and was elected to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1867.

In his later years, Stewart became interested in the the compatibility between science and religious, and also launched himself into the scientific study of psychic phenomena. These, in particular, drew very mixed reviews, to the point that his friend and colleague Peter Guthrie Tait (1831-1901), in the obituary he wrote in memory of Stewart, described him as a "one of the most loveable of men, modest and unassuming, but full of the most weird and grotesque ideas"

Balfour Stewart was severely wounded in 1870 in a train crash from which he never fully recovered, he died on 18 December 1887.

There is much more on the man, including his Orcadian connections here https://www.aboutorkney.com/.../balfour-stewart-m-a-ll-d.../

[thegirlwiththelantern]

5 More Books Translated into Latin

How wonderful that there so many I can make multiple posts! Last time the books I covered were children’s books. This time the selection presented here is more eclectic. De Corde et Mente by Jane Austen, tr. James Rumford Sense and Sensibility seems an obvious choice what with July designated Austen Month for me. I’m not familiar with the original, and Austen’s writing and I have our antagonism,…

[ieisia]

Sir Humphry Davy

17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy is also credited to have been the first to discover clathrate hydrates in his lab.

*Thomas Phillips

In 1799 he experimented with nitrous oxide and was astonished at how it made him laugh, so he nicknamed it "laughing gas" and wrote about its potential anaesthetic properties in relieving pain during surgery.

Davy was a baronet, President of the Royal Society (PRS), Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), Fellow of the Geological Society (FGS), and a member of the American Philosophical Society (elected 1810) Berzeliuscalled Davy's 1806 Bakerian Lecture On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity "one of the best memoirs which has ever enriched the theory of chemistry."

In 1802, Humphry Davy had what was then the most powerful electrical battery in the world at the Royal Institution. With it, Davy created the first incandescent light by passing electric current through a thin strip of platinum, chosen because the metal had an extremely high melting point. It was neither sufficiently bright nor long lasting enough to be of practical use, but demonstrated the principle. By 1806 he was able to demonstrate a much more powerful form of electric lighting to the Royal Society in London. It was an early form of arc light which produced its illumination from an electric arc created between two charcoal rods.

*Carl Frederik von Breda

1802 satirical cartoon by James Gillray showing a Royal Institution lecture on pneumatics, with Davy holding the bellows and Count Rumford looking on at extreme right. Dr Thomas Garnett is the lecturer.

On 25 April 1801, Davy gave his first lecture on the relatively new subject of 'Galvanism'. He and his friend Coleridge had had many conversations about the nature of human knowledge and progress, and Davy's lectures gave his audience a vision of human civilisation brought forward by scientific discovery. "It [science] has bestowed on him powers which may almost be called creative; which have enabled him to modify and change the beings surrounding him, and by his experiments to interrogate nature with power, not simply as a scholar, passive and seeking only to understand her operations, but rather as a master, active with his own instruments." The first lecture garnered rave reviews, and by the June lecture Davy wrote to John King that his last lecture had attendance of nearly 500 people. "There was Respiration, Nitrous Oxide, and unbounded Applause. Amen!" Davy revelled in his public status.

Davy's lectures included spectacular and sometimes dangerous chemical demonstrations along with scientific information, and were presented with considerable showmanship by the young and handsome man. Davy also included both poetic and religious commentary in his lectures, emphasizing that God's design was revealed by chemical investigations. Religious commentary was in part an attempt to appeal to women in his audiences. Davy, like many of his enlightenment contemporaries, supported female education and women's involvement in scientific pursuits, even proposing that women be admitted to evening events at the Royal Society. Davy acquired a large female following around London. In a satirical cartoon by Gillray, nearly half of the attendees pictured are female. His support of women caused Davy to be subjected to considerable gossip and innuendo, and to be criticised as unmanly.

When Davy's lecture series on Galvanism ended, he progressed to a new series on Agricultural Chemistry, and his popularity continued to skyrocket. By June 1802, after just over a year at the Institution and at the age of 23, Davy was nominated to full lecturer at the Royal Institutionof Great Britain. Garnett quietly resigned, citing health reasons.

In November 1804 Davy became a Fellow of the Royal Society, over which he would later preside. He was one of the founding members of the Geological Society in 1807 and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1810 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822.

ompounds and thus prepare many new elements. He went on to electrolyse molten salts and discovered several new metals, including sodium and potassium, highly reactive elements known as the alkali metals. Davy discovered potassium in 1807, deriving it from caustic potash(KOH). Before the 19th century, no distinction had been made between potassium and sodium. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Davy isolated sodium in the same year by passing an electric current through molten sodium hydroxide.

During the first half of 1808, Davy conducted a series of further electrolysis experiments on alkaline earths including lime, magnesia, strontites and barytes. At the beginning of June, Davy received a letter from the Swedish chemist Berzelius claiming that he, in conjunction with Dr. Pontin, had successfully obtained amalgams of calcium and barium by electrolysing lime and barytes using a mercury cathode. Davy managed to successfully repeat these experiments almost immediately and expanded Berzelius' method to strontites and magnesia. He noted that while these amalgams oxidised in only a few minutes when exposed to air they could be preserved for lengthy periods of time when submerged in naphtha before becoming covered with a white crust. On 30 June 1808 Davy reported to the Royal Society that he had successfully isolated four new metals which he named barium, calcium, strontium and magnium (later changed to magnesium) which were subsequently published in the Philosophical Transactions. Although Davy conceded magnium was an "undoubtedly objectionable" name he argued the more appropriate name magnesium was already being applied to metallic manganese and wished to avoid creating an equivocal term. The observations gathered from these experiments also led to Davy isolating boron in 1809.

Chlorine was discovered in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who called it "dephlogisticated marine acid" (see phlogiston theory) and mistakenly thought it contained oxygen. Davy showed that the acid of Scheele's substance, called at the time oxymuriatic acid, contained no oxygen. This discovery overturned Lavoisier's definition of acids as compounds of oxygen. In 1810, chlorine was given its current name by Humphry Davy, who insisted that chlorine was in fact an element. The name chlorine, chosen by Davy for "one of [the substance's] obvious and characteristic properties – its colour", comes from the Greek χλωρος (chlōros), meaning green-yellow.

A diamond crystal in its matrix

In 1815 Davy also suggested that acids were substances that contained replaceable hydrogen ions;– hydrogen that could be partly or totally replaced by reactive metals which are placed above hydrogen in the reactivity series. When acids reacted with metals they formed salts and hydrogen gas. Bases were substances that reacted with acids to form salts and water. These definitions worked well for most of the nineteenth century.

Herculaneum papyri

Main article: Herculaneum papyri

Humphry Davy experimented on fragments of the Herculaneum papyri before his departure to Naples in 1818. His early experiments showed hope of success. In his report to the Royal Society Davy writes that: 'When a fragment of a brown MS. in which the layers were strongly adhered, was placed in an atmosphere of chlorine, there was an immediate action, the papyrus smoked and became yellow, and the letters appeared much more distinct; and by the application of heat the layers separated from each other, giving fumes of muriatic acid.

The success of the early trials prompted Davy to travel to Naples to conduct further research on the Herculaneum papyri. Accompanied by his wife, they set off on 26 May 1818 to stay in Flanders where Davy was invited by the coal miners to speak. They then traveled to Carniola (now Slovenia) which proved to become 'his favourite Alpine retreat' before finally arriving in Italy. In Italy, they befriended Lord Byron in Rome and then went on to travel to Naples.

Initial experiments were again promising and his work resulted in 'partially unrolling 23 MSS., from which fragments of writing were obtained'  but after returning to Naples on 1 December 1819 from a summer in the Alps, Davy complained that 'the Italians at the museum [were] no longer helpful but obstructive'. Davy decided to renounce further work on the papyri because 'the labour, in itself difficult and unpleasant, been made more so, by the conduct of the persons at the head of this department in the Museum'.

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday: Sequoyah Part I

Today we commemorate the publication of the inaugural issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, published on this day, February 21 in 1828. It was the first newspaper in the United States published by Native Americans and was also the first published in a Native language. The latter was possible due to the work of Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ), a Cherokee silversmith who developed the system of writing for the Cherokee language. James Rumford’s children’s book Sequoyah: the Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing, published in New York by Houghton Mifflin in 2004, tells the story of this accomplishment with a parallel text translation in Cherokee by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby, language training coordinator at the Cherokee Nation Cultural Resource Center.

Sequoyah’s accomplishment is remarkable not just for creating a new writing system, but for having done so independently, as opposed to adapting an existing system of writing, as is the case with most of the writing systems in use today. Sequoyah was illiterate prior to creating a system of writing to convey his own language.

Starting around 1809, Sequoyah’s first attempt at creating a writing system for the Cherokee language was logographic, where each word has a unique symbol or character. However, various reports suggest that either neighbors or Sequoyah’s own wife, burned this initial work, possibly believing it to be an evil project or otherwise detrimentally effecting Sequoyah’s wellbeing. If you can imagine walking into the cabin of a dear friend, who incidentally neglected to sow their fields that year, and seeing the walls covered in thousands of wooden shingles scrawled with undiscernible symbols, you might be able to empathize with their concern. It must have been a sight.

This setback might have been a turning point for Sequoyah. Able to begin afresh, he abandoned the logogram as impractical. The system he ultimately developed for writing Cherokee utilizes a syllabary instead. By 1821, he had finalized a syllabary of 86 symbols (later dropped to 85). Sequoyah’s first student was his six year old daughter, Ayokeh, who helped him prove they were communicating via writing when questioned by tribal authorities. The Cherokee Nation officially adopted Sequoyah’s syllabary in 1825, and literacy rates among the Cherokee quickly exploded, with some sources citing literacy rates among the Cherokee Nation as high as 90% by 1830.

Stay tuned for part II tomorrow!

View more Milestone Monday posts here.

-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[yaworldchallenge]

🇹🇩 Chad

Region: Central Africa

Mango Rain

Author: James Rumford

50 pages, published 2011

Original language: English

Native author? Author lived in  Africa

Age: Children

Blurb:

A Chadian boy builds a toy truck from things he has found, as a mango tree flowers, then bears fruit following a short rain.

Other reps:

Genres: #slice of life

My thoughts:

A short picture book about a boy in Chad. Not much else available for the country, can anyone suggest one?

Review to come.

Link to buy

[smkelly84]

Dog-of-the-Sea-Waves James Rumford's Dog-of-the-Sea-Waves depicts early Hawaiian culture and manatees. With beautiful illustrations, we learn of how Hawaiians first encountered manatees, what they thought of these odd looking creatures and how they bonded with one.

[draugasogur]

"Luxury or the comforts of a rumpford", 1801. A parody of James Gillray's, " Luxury or the comforts of a rumford stove".

[nathanalbright151]

Book Review: Seeker Of Knowledge

Book Review: Seeker Of Knowledge

Seeker Of Knowledge:  The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs, by James Rumford

This book is a pleasant and surprisingly instructive children’s book on the life of Jean-Françios Champollion.  To be sure, there is some oversimplification here, as the author focuses on Champollion and not on the context of his life.  But seriously, this is a children’s book, and there is going to be some…

[webionaire]

Along with most physicists of the time, Maxwell had a strong interest in psychology. Following in the steps of Isaac Newton and Thomas Young, he was particularly interested in the study of colour vision. From 1855 to 1872, Maxwell published at intervals a series of investigations concerning the perception of colour, colour-blindness, and colour theory, and was awarded the Rumford Medal for "On the Theory of Colour Vision".[110]

Isaac Newton had demonstrated, using prisms, that white light, such as sunlight, is composed of a number of monochromatic components which could then be recombined into white light.[111] Newton also showed that an orange paint made of yellow and red could look exactly like a monochromatic orange light, although being composed of two monochromatic yellow and red lights. Hence the paradox that puzzled physicists of the time: two complex lights (composed of more than one monochromatic light) could look alike but be physically different, called metameres. Thomas Young later proposed that this paradox could be explained by colours being perceived through a limited number of channels in the eyes, which he proposed to be threefold,[112] the trichromatic colour theory. Maxwell used the recently developed linear algebra to prove Young's theory. Any monochromatic light stimulating three receptors should be able to be equally stimulated by a set of three different monochromatic lights (in fact, by any set of three different lights). He demonstrated that to be the case,[113] inventing colour matching experiments and Colourimetry.

Maxwell was also interested in applying his theory of colour perception, namely in colour photography. Stemming directly from his psychological work on colour perception: if a sum of any three lights could reproduce any perceivable colour, then colour photographs could be produced with a set of three coloured filters. In the course of his 1855 paper, Maxwell proposed that, if three black-and-white photographs of a scene were taken through red, green, and blue filters, and transparent prints of the images were projected onto a screen using three projectors equipped with similar filters, when superimposed on the screen the result would be perceived by the human eye as a complete reproduction of all the colours in the scene.[114]

During an 1861 Royal Institution lecture on colour theory, Maxwell presented the world's first demonstration of colour photography by this principle of three-colour analysis and synthesis. Thomas Sutton, inventor of the single-lens reflex camera, took the picture. He photographed a tartan ribbon three times, through red, green, and blue filters, also making a fourth photograph through a yellow filter, which, according to Maxwell's account, was not used in the demonstration. Because Sutton's photographic plates were insensitive to red and barely sensitive to green, the results of this pioneering experiment were far from perfect. It was remarked in the published account of the lecture that "if the red and green images had been as fully photographed as the blue", it "would have been a truly-coloured image of the riband. By finding photographic materials more sensitive to the less refrangible rays, the representation of the colours of objects might be greatly improved."[70][115][116] Researchers in 1961 concluded that the seemingly impossible partial success of the red-filtered exposure was due to ultraviolet light, which is strongly reflected by some red dyes, not entirely blocked by the red filter used, and within the range of sensitivity of the wet collodion process Sutton employed.[117]

===

you can use ilford ortho+ for two the 3 separation negatives

[rbolick]

Books On Books Collection - David McLimans

Gone Wild (2016) Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet (2016)David McLimansCasebound, illustrated paper over boards, illustrated doublures, sewn book block. Illustrated, debossed glossy paper dustjacket. H255 x W285 mm. 36 unnumbered pages. Acquired from Gargoyle Books, 25 August 2022.Photos: Books On Books Collection. In the history of children’s books, the alphabet looms large, and among…

[scotianostra]

On December 19th 1887 Balfour Stewart, the Scottish meteorologist and geophysicist, died.

Balfour Stewart was born on 1st November 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. An “intellectually precocious” child, he entered St-Andrews University at age thirteen, subsequently transfering to the University of Edinburgh to study natural philosophy. Bending to parental pressures, upon graduating he embarked on business, which he however abandoned and return to the University of Edinburgh in 1853 to work as an assistant to James D. Forbes (1809-1868). In 1859 he became Director of Kew Observatory, where he remained until 1870, and finished his career as  Professor of Physics at Owens College in Manchester. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1862, awarded their Rumford Medal in 1868, and was elected to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1867.

Stewart's true forte was in experimental physics, but many of his theoretical ideas, though often lacking mathematical rigour, anticipated many later key developments in nineteenth century Physics, particularly in thermodynamics. He essentially established, in a purely empirical and almost intuitive manner, the radiation Laws later obtained by  German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff.  Stewart also held a life-long fascination with the possible link between terrestrial magnetism and meteorological phenomena. He first postulated the existence of a high, electrically conducting atmospheric layer which he aptly named "ionosphere", and was the primary driver behind the study of possible planetary influences on sunspots carried our during his directorship at Kew.

In his later years, Stewart became interested in the the compatibility between science and religion, and also launched himself into the scientific study of psychic phenomena. These, in particular, drew very mixed reviews, to the point that his friend and colleague Peter Guthrie Tait, in the obituary he wrote in memory of Stewart, described him as a "one of the most loveable of men, modest and unassuming, but full of the most weird and grotesque ideas".

 Nonetheless, as Professor of Physics at Owens College, Stewart successfully trained a number of late nineteenth century luminaries of British physics, such as J.J. Thompson, Joseph Henry Pointing  and Arthur Schuster. 

Severely wounded in 1870 in a train crash from which he never fully recovered, he died on 18th december 1887 at Ballymagarvey, Balrath, County Meath, Ireland

[lenific]

@nropay asked puppy, light, color. Set in Something Blue.

—

After much consideration, he had called his brother two months in advance to warn him that this summer Jonah would finally collect on all the invitations filial sentiment had forced Rumford to make over the years.

His brother was a married man again, and this time to a young lady who enjoyed having her husband along as they saw the world. He wanted to make sure that the visit didn’t coincide with one of their trips.

“Two weeks in July, you say?”

Rumford was surprised by the announcement. His reaction didn’t show in his voice; but Jonah heard Belle’s delighted squeal in the background - “Oh, he’s coming again! I can’t believe this!” - and he knew that his brother’s new wife was a reliable compass of Rumford’s own feelings.

Rumford himself cleared his throat. “I’ll be happy to have you back, brother.” He even sounded sincere, but nonetheless Jonah could picture the self-satisfied smirk as he continued in a studiously casual manner. “I presume you will not come unaccompanied. Dare I ask how many rooms I should make ready?”

His brother, Jonah thought with annoyance, was too used to meddling with other people’s personal lives. That he escaped Rumford’s penchant for underhanded manipulation was proof of the marked improvement in their relationship.

That he chuckled at the sound of a sharp swat, accompanied by Belle’s hiss of “Behave, Rum!” and his brother’s pained grunt, was only fair retribution.

“Yes, Rum,-” he allowed himself a juvenile snicker as he mimicked the darling nickname his sister-in-law had adopted- “do behave.”

“It’s a reasonable question,” his brother grumbled back. “Or do you want the esteemed Detective Rogers to wait another half hour while fresh bedclothes are found and set in place?” His tone was in earnest now, as he had found a satisfactorily benign angle for his snooping. “I certainly don’t want Belle put to the trouble at the last minute.”

Since there was no reprimand from that quarter, Jonah understood that Belle would welcome prior warning to make proper arrangements.

“Three,” he said, fiddling with the ring on his right pinky. It wasn’t a nervous gesture. He knew it because he wasn’t nervous. At all. “Make it three rooms.”

“Oh?”

“Rogers has reunited with his daughter. He said something about our trip last autumn, and now the girl is wild to see Storybrooke.”

“Ah, yes. The lovely Miss Alice Gardener - once and soon-to-be-again Rogers, if I understand correctly.”

Jonah’s brow snapped down. “How in hell do you know that?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m the devil himself.” Rumford gave another grunt, and he must have put the receiver away because Jonah barely overheard the whisper that followed: “Just a joke, sweetheart.”

Belle was an effective antidote against decades of self-deprecating habits. His brother had reaped the benefits most notably, but even Jonah was affected when he and his sister-in-law were in the same room. It was impossible to hold onto lowering opinions of oneself, when Belle was determined to believe only the best.

The downside - or the price to pay, as Rumford’s diplomatic ways would put it - was that one started acting as Belle hoped.

His brother cleared his throat again, and he reclaimed the conversation in a more informative mood. “Your Detective Rogers applied to me when he needed legal counsel to see about keeping custody of a runaway child. Quite a shock, to learn you were turning a blind eye on the situation, brother.”

Jonah saw no point in feeling guilty for something that he would do again, so he didn’t. Instead he resolved to scold James for not consulting him before seeking out his brother. He could have explained that Rumford’s law diploma was dusted off for use only when a business contract was broken - and that, one that was in Rumford’s favor.

Desperation for a way to keep Alice must have overwhelmed James’ good sense.

“Did you at least warn him that you were useless,” he asked brusquely, “before you extracted his whole life story?”

“Ye of little faith,” said his brother with a soft laugh. “I introduced your friend to his lawyer myself. As luck would have it, Madder became intrigued by the curious case at once.”

Jonah doubted that any luck had been involved. His brother always knew how to lever a situation to his liking. However, since James credited his lawyer’s skill for the recovery of his daughter within a few weeks rather than the endless legal battle he’d expected, Jonah swallowed his suspicions of his brother as the puppeteer behind the scenes.

“Well done, then.” Jonah smirked, well aware that his own fondness for privacy was surpassed only by his twin’s. “Now you’ll reap on the success of your recommendation by having all of us under your roof for a couple of weeks.”

“Sounds delightful.”

To Jonah’s consternation, he detected no sarcasm in the words. Lifting an eyebrow, he saw no recourse but to prod a bit further: “Alice’s birthday falls a few weeks before our visit. I was thinking that, since work takes her father away from home so often, it was fair to reward her with a companion. Surely you won’t deny a girl to bring her new puppy along?”

There was a pause, and Jonah pictured the silent conference on the other side of the phone line. His brother had always been too fastidious for pets, and Belle showed no enthusiasm for a furry friend. Jonah smiled, settling into his chair to defend the rights of the non-existent canine, but he was thwarted by Rumford’s reply.

“The dog is welcome as well, of course.” And as it dawned on Jonah that now he was committed to presenting little Alice with a puppy, his brother continued, “We might even do some light redecoration. Any idea what color the young lady would like for her room?”

Jonah squinted at the receiver. The time he’d suggested that the Victorian deserved better than that horrid pink shade, he had almost got caned for his trouble. Remarks about the interior resembling more an extended showroom for the pawnshop met with hostile glares. The new mistress had done the house little favor, as Belle’s taste ran too close to his brother’s to demand more change than the drawing of the great curtains during the day.

And now, unprompted, his brother offered a whole room remade?

“Are you serious, Rumford?”

“Perfectly,” said his brother. “After all, it’s not often that you bring a partner home, and—”

“Work partner,” Jonah clarified, tapping his fingers against his desk.

“—a daughter too---”

His hand closed into a tight fist. “His daughter.”

“Of course we want to make them comfortable,” Rumford continued, unruffled by the near-growl. “Belle insists that the detective is a good fellow beneath all those smirks and flirting ways, and since his child ran across half the country to see him, I’m inclined to agree.”

Jonah was silenced, aware that his brother would have given the world to have a young Neal return to him on his own accord. “I see,” he said after a pause, unwilling to steer the conversation in that direction. “Thank you, then. I’ll ask Rogers for the girl’s tastes and get back to you.”

“Splendid.”

“And, Rumford,” he said, needing to make sure his brother wouldn’t overstep in his efforts to indulge his wife. The memory of some events during that last stay in Storybrooke still made him alternatively cringe and blush. “Promise me that you’re not helping Belle play matchmaker.”

“Of course not,” came the speedy reply. Jonah had just decided to relax when his brother cheerily continued, “She assures me there’s no more need for that!”

The End 07/04/18

[blprompt]

British Library digitised image from page 363 of "History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century. Prepared under the supervision of the City History Commission. James

Image taken from: Title: "History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century. Prepared under the supervision of the City History Commission. James O. Lyford, editor" Author(s): Lyford, James Otis [person] ; City History Commission (Concord, New Hampshire) [organisation] British Library shelfmark: "Digital Store 10408.n.14" Page: 363 (scanned page number - not necessarily the actual page number in the publication) Place of publication: Concord Date of publication: 1896 Publisher: Rumford Press Type of resource: Monograph Language(s): English Physical description: 2 volumes (8°) Explore this item in the British Library’s catalogue: 000760332 (physical copy) and 014839666 (digitised copy) (numbers are British Library identifiers) Other links related to this image: - View this image as a scanned publication on the British Library’s online viewer (you can download the image, selected pages or the whole book) - Order a higher quality scanned version of this image from the British Library Other links related to this publication: - View all the illustrations found in this publication - View all the illustrations in publications from the same year (1896) - Download the Optical Character Recognised (OCR) derived text for this publication as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) - Explore and experiment with the British Library’s digital collections The British Library community is able to flourish online thanks to freely available resources such as this. You can help support our mission to continue making our collection accessible to everyone, for research, inspiration and enjoyment, by donating on the British Library supporter webpage here. Thank you for supporting the British Library. from BLPromptBot https://ift.tt/2DCyfv9

[newingtonnow]

Josiah Willard Gibbs’s Impact on Modern Science

American scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs made important scientific contributions to mathematics, physics, and chemistry in the 19th century and was even called “the greatest mind in American history” by Albert Einstein, the German-born theoretical physicist who relied on Gibbs’s theories for many of his own later discoveries. Gibbs’s work had a profound influence on 20th-century science and his work in statistical mechanics laid the groundwork for the development of physical chemistry as a science.

Josiah Willard Gibbs’s Life in New Haven

Josiah Willard Gibbs was born in New Haven on February 11, 1839, the only son of five children born to Josiah and Mary Anna (Van Cleve) Gibbs. Gibbs came from a prestigious family of clergymen and academics and his father was a linguist and theologian who is best remembered as the abolitionist who found an interpreter for the African captives on the Amistad–thus allowing them to testify during their trial.

Photograph of Josiah Willard Gibbs – Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

At the age of 15 Gibbs entered Yale College. Excelling in mathematics and Latin, he graduated in 1858 near the top of his class, and at age 19 received induction into the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. He remained at Yale for his graduate education and in 1863 received his doctorate—the first PhD awarded in engineering in the United States. After graduation, Gibbs became a tutor at the school and taught Latin and natural philosophy (physics). In 1866 he patented a design for a railway brake, and five years later became a professor of mathematical physics at Yale College where he remained for the rest of his life.

Pioneering the Study of Physical Chemistry

When Gibbs was 34, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy published his first work on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities. In the years that followed, he was published many more times, and in 1875 and 1878 the Connecticut Academy published his monograph (in two parts). The book, On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, contained hundreds of mathematical equations and became the basis for establishing physical chemistry as a science.

Copy of plaster model of Gibbs’ thermodynamic (energy entrophy surface) model made by James Clerk Maxwell and sent to Josiah Willard Gibbs at Yale, ca. 1909 – Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

Josiah Willard Gibbs made significant scientific contributions at a time when theoretical science was not easily understood or popular. Much of his research received little recognition, although he was elected into the National Academy of Sciences, he received the Rumford Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work in chemical thermodynamics, and in 1901 he received the Copley Medal (perhaps the most esteemed international medal of the time) from the British Royal Society.

Gibbs never married and apart from summering in New York’s Adirondack Mountains and New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and a European stay in the 1880s, he rarely left New Haven. He lived there (in the house where he was born) with his sister and her husband (who was also a Yale scholar).

Gibbs died relatively young, on April 28, 1903, at the age of 64, from an intestinal obstruction. He received a burial in New Haven’s historic Grove Street Cemetery. In 1912, with the help of German physicist Walther Nernst, a bronze bas-relief memorial, designed by sculptor Lee Lavrie, was installed in the Sloane Physics Laboratory at Yale to honor Gibbs’s life and work. In 1950, Gibbs received induction into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, and, later, the United States Navy named an oceanic research ship the USNS Josiah Willard Gibbs. Perhaps most interestingly, a look up at the moon (near the eastern limb) provides a glimpse of the Gibbs Crater, named in his honor in 1964.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/josiah-willard-gibbs-impact-on-modern-science/