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Sir Humphrey Davy: Greatest Exponents Of The Scientific Method And Temperament

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Humphrey Davy

May 29 is the death anniversary of Sir Humphrey Davy, the discovery of Sodium and Potassium. However he is best known for the discovery of Davy Safety Lamp which prevented explosions in underground coal mines.

Born on December 17 1778, Sir Humphrey Davy is one of the greatest exponents of the scientific method and temperament. Even at a young age Humphrey Davy showed a keen inquisitive nature and was an enthusiastic, loving, and popular lad, of quick humor and energetic imagination, he was fond of composing verses, sketching, making fireworks, fishing, shooting, and collecting minerals. He always had a keen love for nature and loved mountain and water scenery.

Voltaic Cell

Humphrey Davy was a poet of high caliber and planed to write a volume of poems but his tryst with science left this dream unfulfilled till the fag end of his life. It was his friendship with Davies Giddy (later Gilbert; president of the Royal Society, 1827–30) which made his first brush with Chemistry possible. Sir Humphry Davy was involved with a number of experiments dealing with nature of heat, light, and electricity and the chemical and physical doctrines of Antoine Lavoisier.

It was on recommendation of Davies Giddy he got appointed as chemical superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution, founded at Clifton. He was tasked with the possible therapeutic uses of various gases. He inhaled nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to negate the myth that it was the “principle of contagion,” that is, caused diseases. He tested different gasses and almost lost his life by inhaling water gas which was a mixture of hydrogen and poisonous carbon monoxide.

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Humphrey Davy published his papers Concerning Nitrous Oxide, or Dephlogisticated Nitrous Air, and Its Respiration (1800), and immediately earned fame and was invited to lecture at the newly founded Royal Institution of Great Britain in London, where he moved in 1801. He helped English chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish in furthering his researches—e.g., on voltaic cells, early forms of electric batteries.

Sir Humphrey Davy Miners Lamp

Sir Humphrey Davy invented the Davy Safety Lamp which was used in underground mines and helped the miners know beforehand if there was inflammable gas in the underground mines which can precipitate an explosion. Sir Humphrey Davy miner’s lamp helped to save thousands of life which would have been lost due to poisoning and explosion in mines. For his researches on voltaic cells, tanning, and mineral analysis, he received the Copley Medal in 1805. He was elected secretary of the Royal Society in 1807.

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