William Nicol (inventor)
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William Nicol FRSE FCS (1768?2 September 1851) was a Scottish
geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
and
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
who invented the Nicol prism, the first device for obtaining plane-polarized light, in 1828.


Early life

Nicol was born in
Humbie Humbie is a hamlet and rural parish in East Lothian, Scotland lying in south-east of the county, approximately south-west of Haddington and south-east of Edinburgh. Humbie as it is known today was formed as the result of the union between Keit ...
( East Lothian), the son of Walter Nicol and Marion Fowler. According to the parish register, he was baptised on 18 April 1770. Some sources give his date of birth as 1768; other ones (including his gravestone) give 1766. (Note that the gravestone date may be incorrect, as the engraving was done at least 50 years after his death.)


Lecturer

He started out as aide to his uncle,
Henry Moyes Henry Moyes (1750 – 1807) was a blind Scottish lecturer on natural philosophy.A. D. Morrison-Low, ‘ Moyes, Henry (1749/50–1807)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004 Life As an itinerant public spe ...
, an itinerant lecturer in
Natural Philosophy 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 ...
whose blindness necessitated assistance for his chemistry and optics demonstrations.''Joseph Priestley to Joseph Banks'', 6 Feb 1783, NHM, Dawson Turner MS 3, fol. 17p122 Albert Edward Musson, Eric Robinson ''Science and technology in the Industrial Revolution,'' Manchester University Press, 1969, Nicol, having himself become a popular lecturer on that subject at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
, settled in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
to live a very retired life. Besides the prism that bears his name, he conducted extensive studies of
fluid inclusions image:Inclumed.gif, 250px, Trapped in a time capsule the same size as the diameter of a human hair, the ore-forming liquid in this inclusion was so hot and contained so much dissolved solids that when it cooled, crystals of halite, sylvite, gypsum, ...
in crystals and the microscopic structure of
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
wood. He did not publish any of his research findings until 1826.


Nicol prism

Nicol made his prism by bisecting a parallelepiped of
Iceland spar Iceland spar, formerly called Iceland crystal ( is, silfurberg , ) and also called optical calcite, is a transparent variety of calcite, or crystallized calcium carbonate, originally brought from Iceland, and used in demonstrating the polarizati ...
(a naturally occurring, transparent crystalline form of calcium carbonate) along its shortest diagonal, then cementing the two halves together with Canada balsam. Light entering the prism is
refracted In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...
into two rays, one of which emerges as plane-polarized light. Nicol prisms greatly facilitated the study of refraction and polarization, and were later used to investigate molecular structures and optical activity of organic compounds.


Microscopic petrography

In 1815, Nicol developed a method of preparing extremely
thin section In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section (or petrographic thin section) is a thin slice of a rock or mineral sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron ...
s of
crystals A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...
and rocks for microscopical study. He hit upon the plan of cutting sections of fossil wood, so as to reveal its minutest vegetable structures under a microscope. He took a slice from the specimen to be studied, ground it perfectly flat, polished it, and cemented it by means of Canada balsam to a piece of plate-glass. The exposed surface of the slice was then ground down, until the piece of stone was reduced to a thin transparent to translucent layer adhering to the glass, and the requisite degree of transparency was obtained. His technique of making
thin section In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section (or petrographic thin section) is a thin slice of a rock or mineral sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron ...
s made it possible to view mineral samples by transmitted rather than reflected light and therefore enabled the minerals' internal structures to be seen. Nicol prepared a large number of slices of fossil and recent woods. Many of these were described by
Henry Witham Henry Thomas Maire Witham FRSE FGS (1779–1844) was a British landowner remembered as an amateur palaeontologist and mineralogist. He was an early researcher into the internal structure of fossil plants. Life He was born Henry Silvertop ...
in his ''Observations of Fossil Vegetables'' (1831), to which Nicol supplied the first published account of the process. When Nicol died, his instruments and preparations passed to
Alexander Bryson Alexander Bryson FRSE FGS FRSSA FSAScot FRPSE (12 October 1816 – 7 December 1866) was a Scottish biologist, geologist and horologist who served as president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts (1860–61) and as president of the Royal P ...
, who made many additions to the collections and made numerous thin slices of minerals and rocks for the purpose of exhibiting the cavities containing fluid, which had been described long before by David Brewster and Nicol.


Death and legacy

He died at his home, 4 Inverleith Terrace in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
(now renumbered 12 Inverleith Terrace) on 2 September 1851, and was buried in
Warriston Cemetery Warriston Cemetery is a cemetery in Edinburgh. It lies in Warriston, one of the northern suburbs of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was built by the then newly-formed Edinburgh Cemetery Company, and occupies around of land on a slightly sloping si ...
. His burial site is now marked by a plaque on the east wall, north of the sealed eastern gate. Dorsum Nicol on the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
is named after him.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicol, William 1770 births 1851 deaths 19th-century British physicists 19th-century Scottish scientists People from East Lothian Academics of the University of Edinburgh Burials at Warriston Cemetery Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Optical physicists Scottish inventors Scottish physicists Scottish geologists Fellows of the Chemical Society