Henry Cavendish

See also: Cavendish

Henry Cavendish (October 10th 1731, Nice - February 24th 1810, London) was a physicist and British chemist .

Henry Cavendish was the second wire of Lord Charles Cavendish, duke of Devonshire, he inherited one of his uncles an immense fortune which enabled him to finance its recherches.
He was, with the eyes of his contemporaries, completely eccentric refusing to speak or to even see the women. He communicated with his maidservants only using paper and threatened them to lay off them if they tried to see it. It always wore the same clothes and was useful during 30 years of the same hat. Refusing to let itself paint, there does not exist any official portrait of him and the only representations are drafts carried out during dinners. The features of its personality are in agreement with a Syndrome To sprinkle.

In 1798 it was the first to measure the gravitational constant of Newton by an experiment suggested by John Michel, which remained celebrates, and to thus determine the Masse of the Earth. It was one of the founders of the modern chemistry by the method and the precision of measurements that it was necessary in its experiments. He worked in other fields as the electrostatic quantitative (it is a contemporary of Coulomb), which enabled him to pose bases on which the physicists of the 19th century could develop their research. However the extent of its genius was known only in the Années 1870, when Maxwell had stripped the documents which it had left 60 years before.

Chronology

1749 it enters to the Peterhouse College of Cambridge;
1753 fine of its studies, without particular diploma;
1766 presentation with the Royal Society of a report on the existence of gases different from the air like the Dihydrogène (flammable and light) or the carbonic gas. Medal Copley.
1773 one of his/her uncles bequeaths his immense fortune to him;
1776 it discovers the Hydrogène;
1783 analyzes Air;
1784 synthesis of water starting from the Dioxygène and of the Dihydrogène;
1785 oxidation of the Nitrogen using electric sparks;
1798 measurement of the constant of gravitation and estimate of the average Density of the Ground thanks to the Torsion balance;
1803 member: the Royal Society (the Academy of Science) London

Its writings are in the philosophical Transactions .

External bond

Work of Cavendish digitized by the SCD of the University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg.

Simple: Henry Cavendish

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