John Tyndall (August 2, 1820 -- December 4, 1893)John Tyndall was an Irish scientist and natural philosopher. He was born in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, Ireland. In 1844 he became a railway engineer, and in 1847 a teacher at Queenwood College, Hampshire. From there he attended the University of Marburg (1848-1851), where he earned a doctorate in two years; his dissertation was on screw-surfaces. In May 1854 Tyndall was chosen professor of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, a post that made him a colleague of Faraday whom he succeeded as scientific adviser to Trinity House and the Board of Trade in 1866. In 1867 he succeeded Faraday as superintendent of the Royal Institution. Tyndall with Huxley, went to Switzerland to study the phenomena of glacier movement. He became a mountaineer and explorer and was the first to ascend the Weisshorn (1861). Tyndall climbed to within a few hundred feet of the top of the Matterhorn in 1864, the year before Edward Whymper reached the summit. Much of his work was published in the Transactions of the Royal Society including a report in 1875 that a species of Penicillium had caused some bacteria to burst. His discovery of the antibiotic properties of penicillium predated Ernest Duchesne by 20 years and Alexander Fleming by over 50 years. His best-known books include: Heat as a Mode of Motion (1863), The Forms of Water, &c. (1872), Lectures on Light (1873), Essays on the floating-matter of the air in relation to putrefaction and infection (1881); On Sound (1867), Diamagnetism and Magne-crystallic Action (1870), Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat (1872). Works |