| Humphry
Davy |
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Sir
Humphry Davy
Outline of
Humphry Davy's achievements.
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Humphry
Davy
Humphrey Davy
encouraged manufacturers to take a scientific approach to production. His
discoveries in chemistry helped to improve several industries including
agriculture, mining and tanning.
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Humphry
Davy
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Humphry
Davy
Son of an
impoverished Cornish woodcarver, rose meteorically to become a leader in
the reformed chemistry movement initiated by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier—albeit
a critic of some of its basic premises—and a pioneer in the new field of
electrochemistry. |
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"Fortunately
science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time
nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and no age.
The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how
much remains unknown..." - Humphry Davy November 30, 1825
Sir Humphry Davy
was a famous British inventor, the leading chemist of his day, and a philosopher.
Pure sodium
was first isolated by Humphry Davy in 1807 through the electrolysis of
caustic soda (NaOH). Barium was first isolated by Humphry Davy in 1808
through the electrolysis of molten baryta (BaO). Cool flames were accidentally
discovered in 1817 by Humphry Davy, at temperatures as low as 120 °C,
fuel-air mixtures react chemically and produce very weak flames called
cool flames.
In 1809, Humphry
Davy invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery
and attached a charcoal strip betwween the other ends of the wires. The
charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp. Davy later invented the
miner's safety lamp in 1815. The lamp called firedamp or minedamp,
allowed for the mining of deep seams despite the presence of methane and
other flammable gases.
Humphry Davy's
laboratory assistant was Michael Faraday, who
went on to extend Davy's work and became famous in his own right.
Humphry
Davy Achievements
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Proved that it
was not using two different metals that made the Voltaic Pile work.
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Discovered the
medical properties of nitrous oxide or laughing gas.
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Boron compounds
have been known for thousands of years, but the element was not discovered
until 1808 by Sir Humphry Davy, Gay-Lussac and Thenard.
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Performed the
first electrochemical decompositions, isolating potassium, sodium, barium,
strontium, calcium, and magnesium.
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Invented the first
electric light.
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Invented the miner's
safety lamp.
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