Everything about William Hyde Wollaston totally explained
William Hyde Wollaston FRS (
August 6,
1766 –
December 22,
1828) was an
English chemist and physicist who is famous for discovering two
chemical elements and for developing a way to process
platinum ore.
Biography
Wollaston was born in
East Dereham,
Norfolk, the son of the priest-astronomer
Francis Wollaston (1737-1815) and his wife Mary Farquier. In
1793 William obtained a doctorate in
medicine from
Cambridge University. During his studies there he became interested in
chemistry,
crystallography,
metallurgy and
physics. The mineral
wollastonite is named after him. In 1800 he left medicine and concentrated on pursuing these interests instead of his trained vocation.
Wollaston died in 1828 and was buried in
Chislehurst, England.
Work
Wollaston is perhaps best known as a chemist. He became wealthy by developing the first physico-chemical method for processing platinum ore in practical quantities, and in the process of testing the device he discovered the elements
palladium (symbol Pd) in
1803 and
rhodium (symbol Rh) in
1804.
Anders Gustav Ekeberg discovered tantalum in 1802, however, William Hyde Wollaston declared it was identical with niobium. Latern
Heinrich Rose proved in
1846 that niobium and tantulum were indeed different elements.
Wollaston also performed important work in electricity. In 1801, he performed an experiment showing that the
electricity from
friction was identical to that produced by
voltaic piles. During the last years of his life he performed electrical experiments that would pave the way to the eventual design of the
electric motor. However, controversy erupted when
Michael Faraday, who was undoubtedly the first to construct a working electrical motor, refused to grant Wollaston credit for his earlier work.
His optical work was important as well, where he's remembered for his observations of dark
Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum (1802) which eventually led to the discovery of the elements in the Sun. He invented the
camera lucida (1807), the reflecting
goniometer (1809), and the
Wollaston prism. He also developed the first lens specifically for camera lens called Wollaston's meniscus lens, or just meniscus lens, in 1812. The lens was designed to improve the image projected by the
camera obscura. By changing the shape of the lens, Wollaston was able to project a flatter image, eliminating much of the distortion that was a problem with many of that day's
biconvex lens.
Wollaston used his
Bakerian lecture in
1805,
On the Force of Percussion, to defend
Gottfried Leibniz's principle of
vis viva, an early formulation of the
conservation of energy. Wollaston was too ill to deliver his final Bakerian in 1828 and dictated it to
Henry Warburton who read it on
November 20.
Wollaston also served on a
royal commission that opposed adoption of the
metric system (
1819), and one that created the
imperial gallon.
Honours and awards
Honours and awards
Legacy
Wollaston Medal
Wollastonite, a chain silicate mineral
Wollaston Lake, in Saskatchewan, Canada
Wollaston, a lunar impact craterFurther Information
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