Dr Wollaston
William Hyde Wollaston discovered new elements and helped Faraday to greatness, all from the top of a tea-tray.
1766-1828
King George III 1760-1820 to King George IV 1820-1830
William Hyde Wollaston discovered new elements and helped Faraday to greatness, all from the top of a tea-tray.
1766-1828
King George III 1760-1820 to King George IV 1820-1830
A Royal Commission observed in 1819 that while metric measurements do have clear advantages, for many practical purposes imperial measurements are actually more convenient. One of the members of this remarkably sensible Commission was Dr William Wollaston (1766-1828), a man of unimpeachable scientific pedigree.
AFTER graduating in medicine from Gonville and Caius in 1793, and practising as a rural doctor in Cambridgeshire for a few years, William Wollaston came into family money and settled in London, free to indulge his passion for chemistry.
He developed a process for producing platinum which he kept a closely-guarded secret, and from which he made a small fortune. In doing so, he also discovered the elements palladium and rhodium. Wollaston studied both electromagnetism, leading directly to Faraday’s groundbreaking electric motor in 1831, and refrigeration, devising the ingenious ‘cryophorus’ to show how evaporating gases can freeze water. In optics, he invented the meniscus lens now commonly used in spectacles.
A visitor once asked to see the laboratory where Wollaston worked, apparently expecting some kind of Aladdin’s cave. Wollaston drew him into a little study, and pointed to an old tea-tray littered with watch crystals, litmus paper, and a miniature scales.* “There” he said “is all the laboratory that I have!”
Litmus testing for acids and bases was introduced by Robert Boyle (1627-1691).
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Of what was Wollaston a doctor?
He had graduated from Cambridge in medicine.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Wollaston qualified as a doctor in 1793. He gave up his practice in 1797. He devoted all his energy to chemistry.