henry cavendish personality

The contemporary accounts of his personality have led some modern commentators, such as Oliver Sacks, to speculate that he had Asperger syndrome,[32] a form of autism. Proceed to checkout ({qq} items) {$$$.$$}, Springer; Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. Following his father's death, Henry bought another house in town and also a house in Clapham Common (built by Thomas Cubitt), at that time to the south of London. Along with his scientific prowess, he was known for his shyness. Cavendish published no books and few papers, but he achieved much. He was considered to be agnostic. In 1760 Henry Cavendish was elected to both these groups, and he was assiduous in his attendance thereafter. 319-327. The disappointment is reflected well by Bickley (1911): ‘there is something pathetic about such an existence as Henry Cavendish’s, so fruitful and yet so utterly barren.’ Clearly though, being characterised by his peers in … He published an early version of his theory in 1771, based on an expansive electrical fluid that exerted pressure. Cavendish was taciturn and solitary and regarded by many as eccentric. [10][11] (2003), "The Size of the Earth": Poynting, J. H. (1894), "The Mean Density of the Earth" London: Charles Griffin and Company, page 45. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. Profiles the eminent 18th century natural philosopher Henry Cavendish, best known for his work in chemistry and physics and one of the most baffling personalities in the history of science. The Scottish inventor James Watt published a paper on the composition of water in 1783; controversy about who made the discovery first ensued. He then lived with his father in London, where he soon had his own laboratory. There's a problem loading this menu right now. In these chapters we are introduced to the psychology of science and of scientists and we learn about Cavendish’s life and times. Henry Cavendish", "Henry Cavendish | Biography, Facts, & Experiments", "Cavendish House, Clapham Common South Side", "Experiments to Determine the Density of Earth", CODATA Value: Newtonian constant of gravitation, "An Attempt to Explain Some of the Principal Phaenomena of Electricity, by means of an Elastic Fluid", "An Account of Some Attempts to Imitate the Effects of the Torpedo by Electricity", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Cavendish&oldid=983392209, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Articles needing additional references from October 2019, All articles needing additional references, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2015, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 14 October 2020, at 00:20. His first publication (1766) was a combination of three short chemistry papers on “factitious airs,” or gases produced in the laboratory. Cavendish inherited two fortunes that were so large that Jean Baptiste Biot called him "the richest of all the savants and the most knowledgeable of the rich". Henry Cavendish was born on 10 October 1731 in Nice, where his family was living at the time. This book will appeal to a wide audience, from those interested in 18th century history or history of science, to those interested in incidences of autism in prominent figures from history. Soon after the Royal Institution of Great Britain was established, Cavendish became a manager (1800) and took an active interest, especially in the laboratory, where he observed and helped in Humphry Davy’s chemical experiments. His interest and expertise in the use of scientific instruments led him to head a committee to review the Royal Society's meteorological instruments and to help assess the instruments of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Cavendish wrote papers on electrical topics for the Royal Society[27][28] but the bulk of his electrical experiments did not become known until they were collected and published by James Clerk Maxwell a century later, in 1879, long after other scientists had been credited with the same results. Since these are related to the Earth's density by a trivial web of algebraic relations, none of these sources are wrong, but they do not match the exact word choice of Cavendish,[22][23] and this mistake has been pointed out by several authors. His experiment to measure the density of the Earth has come to be known as the Cavendish experiment. He produced “inflammable air” (hydrogen) by dissolving metals in acids and “fixed air” (carbon dioxide) by dissolving alkalis in acids, and he collected these and other gases in bottles inverted over water or mercury. The author traces aspects of Cavendish’s personality, views and interpretations of him, and explores notions of eccentricity and autism before detailing relevant aspects of the travels made by our subject. He could speak to only one person at a time, and only if the person were known to him and male. Working within the framework of Newtonian mechanism, Cavendish had tackled the problem of the nature of heat in the 1760s, explaining heat as the result of the motion of matter. In the late nineteenth century, long after his death, James Clerk Maxwell looked through Cavendish's papers and found things for which others had been given credit. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1878. About the time of his father's death, Cavendish began to work closely with Charles Blagden, an association that helped Blagden enter fully into London's scientific society. He next published a paper on the production of water by burning inflammable air (that is, hydrogen) in dephlogisticated air (now known to be oxygen), the latter a constituent of atmospheric air. [36] In honour of Henry Cavendish's achievements and due to an endowment granted by Henry's relative William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, the University of Cambridge's physics laboratory was named the Cavendish Laboratory by James Clerk Maxwell, the first Cavendish Professor of Physics and an admirer of Cavendish's work. Please try again. Famous for his taciturn personality, one of his contemporaries described Henry Cavendish as the “coldest and most indifferent of mortals”. [7], In 1785, Cavendish investigated the composition of common (i.e. He observed that, when he had determined the amounts of phlogisticated air (nitrogen) and dephlogisticated air (oxygen), there remained a volume of gas amounting to 1/120 of the volume of the nitrogen. Some physicists interpreted hydrogen as pure phlogiston. The author considers the question “How do we talk about Cavendish?” and provides a useful summary of Cavendish’s travels. Cavendish continued to work on electricity after this initial paper, but he published no more on the subject. His personality is examined from two perspectives: one is that he had a less severe form of autism, as has been claimed; the other is that he was eccentric and a psychological disorder was absent. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. (1921). He conversed little, always dressed in an old-fashioned suit, and developed no known deep personal attach… He then measured their solubility in water and their specific gravity and noted their combustibility. He also objected to Lavoisier’s identification of heat as having a material or elementary basis. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, The Personality of Henry Cavendish - A Great Scientist with Extraordinary Peculiarities (Archimedes (36)), Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. He then measured their solubility in water and their specific gravity, and noted their combustibility. [16], The experimental apparatus consisted of a torsion balance with a pair of 2-inch 1.61-pound lead spheres suspended from the arm of a torsion balance and two much larger stationary lead balls (350 pounds).

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