Thomas Melvill(e) (1726 – December 1753) was a Scottish

natural philosopher Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancient wo ...

, who was active in the fields of spectroscopy and

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

Biography

The son of Helen Whytt and the Rev Andrew Melville, minister of Monimail (d. 29 July 1736), Melvill was a student at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. In 1749, with Alexander Wilson, his landlord and later the first professor of

at the University, they made the first recorded use of kites in

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...

. They measured air temperature at various levels above the ground simultaneously with a train of kites. He most notably delivered a lecture entitled ''Observations on light and colours'' to the Medical Society of Edinburgh in 1752, in which he described what has been seen as the first

flame test A flame test is an analytical procedure used in chemistry to detect the presence of certain elements, primarily metal ions, based on each element's characteristic flame emission spectrum (which may be affected by the presence of chloride io ...

. ; see pp. 33–36. In it he described how he had used a

prism Prism usually refers to: * Prism (optics), a transparent optical component with flat surfaces that refract light * Prism (geometry), a kind of polyhedron Prism may also refer to: Science and mathematics * Prism (geology), a type of sedimentary ...

to observe a flame coloured by various salts. He reported that a yellow line was always seen at the same place in the spectrum; this was derived from the

sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable ...

which was present as an impurity in all his salts. Because of this, he is sometimes described as the father of flame emission spectroscopy, though he did not identify the source of the line, or propose his experiment as a method of analysis. He also proposed that light rays of different colours travelled at different speeds to explain the action of a prism, and suggested that this could be verified if the moons of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

appeared as slightly different colours at different stages of their orbit. An experiment by James Short failed to confirm his hypothesis. Melvill died in

Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...

in 1753, aged 27.

References

1726 births 1753 deaths 18th-century British astronomers 18th-century British physicists 18th-century Scottish scientists People from Fife Alumni of the University of Glasgow Scottish astronomers Scottish meteorologists Scottish physicists Spectroscopists {{physicist-stub