Thomas Young (scientist)
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Thomas Young FRS (13 June 177310 May 1829) was a British
polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
who made notable contributions to the fields of
vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...
, light,
solid mechanics Solid mechanics, also known as mechanics of solids, is the branch of continuum mechanics that studies the behavior of solid materials, especially their motion and deformation under the action of forces, temperature changes, phase changes, and ...
, energy,
physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
,
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, musical harmony, and
Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious p ...
. He was instrumental in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, specifically the
Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancien ...
. Young has been described as "
The Last Man Who Knew Everything ''The Last Man Who Knew Everything'' (2006), written by Andrew Robinson, is a biography of the British polymath Thomas Young (1773–1829). This biography is subtitled ''Thomas Young, the Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained H ...
". His work influenced that of
William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline ...
,
Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Associatio ...
,
James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and li ...
, and
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
. Young is credited with establishing the
wave theory of light In physics, physical optics, or wave optics, is the branch of optics that studies Interference (wave propagation), interference, diffraction, Polarization (waves), polarization, and other phenomena for which the ray approximation of geometric opti ...
, in contrast to the particle theory of
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
. Young's work was subsequently supported by the work of
Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular th ...
.


Personal life

Young belonged to a Quaker family of
Milverton, Somerset Milverton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated in the valley of the River Tone west of Taunton in the Somerset West and Taunton district. The village has a population of 1,438. The parish includes the hamlet of Preston B ...
, where he was born in 1773, the eldest of ten children. At the age of fourteen Young had learned
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
. Young began to study medicine in London at
St Bartholomew's Hospital St Bartholomew's Hospital, commonly known as Barts, is a teaching hospital located in the City of London. It was founded in 1123 and is currently run by Barts Health NHS Trust. History Early history Barts was founded in 1123 by Rahere (die ...
in 1792, moved to the
University of Edinburgh Medical School The University of Edinburgh Medical School (also known as Edinburgh Medical School) is the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the United Kingdom and part of the University of Edinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinar ...
in 1794, and a year later went to
Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...
, Lower Saxony, Germany, where he obtained the degree of doctor of medicine in 1796 from the
University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...
. In 1797 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In the same year he inherited the estate of his grand-uncle,
Richard Brocklesby Richard Brocklesby (11 August 1722 – 11 December 1797), an English physician, was born at Minehead, Somerset. He was educated at Ballitore, in Ireland, where Edmund Burke was one of his school fellows, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and f ...
, which made him financially independent, and in 1799 he established himself as a physician at 48
Welbeck Street Welbeck Street is a street in the West End, central London. It has historically been associated with the medical profession. Location The street runs approximately north–south between New Cavendish Street at the northern end, crossing Wig ...
, London (now recorded with a blue plaque). Young published many of his first academic articles anonymously to protect his reputation as a physician. In 1801, Young was appointed professor of
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 ...
(mainly
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
) at the Royal Institution. In two years, he delivered 91 lectures. In 1802, he was appointed foreign secretary of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, of which he had been elected a fellow in 1794. He resigned his professorship in 1803, fearing that its duties would interfere with his medical practice. His lectures were published in 1807 in the ''Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy'' and contain a number of anticipations of later theories. In 1811, Young became physician to St George's Hospital, and in 1814 he served on a committee appointed to consider the dangers involved in the general introduction of
gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
for lighting into London. In 1816 he was secretary of a commission charged with ascertaining the precise length of the
seconds pendulum A seconds pendulum is a pendulum whose period is precisely two seconds; one second for a swing in one direction and one second for the return swing, a frequency of 0.5 Hz. Pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that ...
(the length of a pendulum whose period is exactly 2 seconds), and in 1818 he became secretary to the
Board of Longitude The Commissioners for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea, or more popularly Board of Longitude, was a British government body formed in 1714 to administer a scheme of prizes intended to encourage innovators to solve the problem of finding lon ...
and superintendent of the
HM Nautical Almanac Office His Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office (HMNAO), now part of the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, was established in 1832 on the site of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG), where ''The Nautical Almanac'' had been published since 1767. HMNAO ...
. Young was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1822. A few years before his death he became interested in life insurance, and in 1827 he was chosen one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Sciences. In the same year he became a first class corresponding member, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. In 1828, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1804, Young married Eliza Maxwell. They had no children. Young died in his 56th year in London on 10 May 1829, having suffered recurrent attacks of "asthma". His autopsy revealed
atherosclerosis Atherosclerosis is a pattern of the disease arteriosclerosis in which the wall of the artery develops abnormalities, called lesions. These lesions may lead to narrowing due to the buildup of atheromatous plaque. At onset there are usually no s ...
of the aorta. His body was buried in the graveyard of St. Giles Church at Farnborough, in the county of
Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
.
Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...
houses a white marble tablet in memory of Young, bearing an epitaph by
Hudson Gurney Hudson Gurney (19 January 1775 – 9 November 1864) was an English antiquary and verse-writer, also known as a politician. He was a member of the Gurney family. Life Gurney was born at Norwich on 19 January 1775, the eldest son of Richard Gurney ...
: Young was highly regarded by his friends and colleagues. He was said never to impose his knowledge, but if asked was able to answer even the most difficult scientific question with ease. Although very learned he had a reputation for sometimes having difficulty in communicating his knowledge. It was said by one of his contemporaries that, "His words were not those in familiar use, and the arrangement of his ideas seldom the same as those he conversed with. He was therefore worse calculated than any man I ever knew for the communication of knowledge."


Religious views

Though he sometimes dealt with religious topics of history in Egypt and wrote about the history of Christianity in
Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...
, not much is known about Young's personal religious views. On George Peacock's account, Young never spoke to him about morals, metaphysics or religion, though according to Young's wife, his attitudes showed that "his Quaker upbringing had strongly influenced his religious practices." Authoritative sources have described Young in terms of a cultural Christian Quaker.
Hudson Gurney Hudson Gurney (19 January 1775 – 9 November 1864) was an English antiquary and verse-writer, also known as a politician. He was a member of the Gurney family. Life Gurney was born at Norwich on 19 January 1775, the eldest son of Richard Gurney ...
informed that before his marriage, Young had to join the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
, and was baptized later. After his work on physics received some criticism from Henry Brougham, Young stated: "I have resolved to confine my studies and my pen to medical subjects only. For the talents which God has not given me, I am not responsible, but those which I possess, I have hitherto cultivated and employed as diligently as my opportunities have allowed me to do ; and I shall continue to apply them with assiduity, and in tranquillity, to that profession which has constantly been the ultimate object of all my labours. Gurney stated that Young "retained a good deal of his old creed, and carried to his scriptural studies his habit of inquisition of languages and manners," rather than the habit of proselytism. Yet, the day before his death, Young participated in religious sacraments; as reported in David Brewster's ''Edinburgh Journal of Science'': "After some information concerning his affairs, and some instructions concerning the hierographical papers in his hands, he said that, perfectly aware of his situation, he had taken the sacraments of the church on the day preceding... His religious sentiments were by himself stated to be liberal, though orthodox. He had extensively studied the Scriptures, of which the precepts were deeply impressed upon his mind from his earliest years; and he evidenced the faith which he professed; in an unbending course of usefulness and rectitude."


Research


Wave theory of light

In Young's own judgment, of his many achievements the most important was to establish the
wave theory of light In physics, physical optics, or wave optics, is the branch of optics that studies Interference (wave propagation), interference, diffraction, Polarization (waves), polarization, and other phenomena for which the ray approximation of geometric opti ...
. To do so, he had to overcome the century-old view, expressed in the venerable Newton's ''
Opticks ''Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'' is a book by English natural philosopher Isaac Newton that was published in English in 1704 (a scholarly Latin translation appeared in 1706). (''Opti ...
'', that light is a particle. Nevertheless, in the early 19th century Young put forth a number of theoretical reasons supporting the wave theory of light, and he developed two enduring demonstrations to support this viewpoint. With the
ripple tank In physics, a ripple tank is a shallow glass tank of water used to demonstrate the basic properties of waves. It is a specialized form of a wave tank. The ripple tank is usually illuminated from above, so that the light shines through the water. ...
he demonstrated the idea of
interference Interference is the act of interfering, invading, or poaching. Interference may also refer to: Communications * Interference (communication), anything which alters, modifies, or disrupts a message * Adjacent-channel interference, caused by extr ...
in the context of water waves. With
Young's interference experiment Young's interference experiment, also called Young's double-slit interferometer, was the original version of the modern double-slit experiment, performed at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Thomas Young. This experiment played a major r ...
, the predecessor of the
double-slit experiment In modern physics, the double-slit experiment is a demonstration that light and matter can display characteristics of both classically defined waves and particles; moreover, it displays the fundamentally probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics ...
, he demonstrated interference in the context of light as a wave. Young, speaking on 24 November 1803, to the Royal Society of London, began his now-classic description of the historic experiment: In his subsequent paper, titled ''Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics'' (1804), Young describes an experiment in which he placed a card measuring approximately in a beam of light from a single opening in a window and observed the fringes of colour in the shadow and to the sides of the card. He observed that placing another card in front or behind the narrow strip so as to prevent the light beam from striking one of its edges caused the fringes to disappear. This supported the contention that light is composed of
wave In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...
s. Young performed and analysed a number of experiments, including interference of light from reflection off nearby pairs of micrometre grooves, from reflection off thin films of soap and oil, and from
Newton's rings Newton's rings is a phenomenon in which an interference pattern is created by the reflection of light between two surfaces, typically a spherical surface and an adjacent touching flat surface. It is named after Isaac Newton, who investigated the ...
. He also performed two important diffraction experiments using fibres and long narrow strips. In his ''Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts'' (1807) he gives Grimaldi credit for first observing the fringes in the shadow of an object placed in a beam of light. Within ten years, much of Young's work was reproduced and then extended by
Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular th ...
.


Young's modulus

Young described the characterization of elasticity that came to be known as Young's modulus, denoted as ''E'', in 1807, and further described it in his ''Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts''. However, the first use of the concept of Young's modulus in experiments was by Giordano Riccati in 1782—predating Young by 25 years. Furthermore, the idea can be traced to a paper by
Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...
published in 1727, some 80 years before Thomas Young's 1807 paper. The Young's modulus relates the stress (pressure) in a body to its associated strain (change in length as a ratio of the original length); that is, stress = ''E'' × strain, for a uniaxially loaded specimen. Young's modulus is independent of the component under investigation; that is, it is an inherent material property (the term modulus refers to an inherent material property). Young's Modulus allowed, for the first time, prediction of the strain in a component subject to a known stress (and vice versa). Prior to Young's contribution, engineers were required to apply Hooke's F = kx relationship to identify the deformation (x) of a body subject to a known load (F), where the constant (k) is a function of both the geometry and material under consideration. Finding k required physical testing for any new component, as the F = kx relationship is a function of both geometry and material. Young's Modulus depends only on the material, not its geometry, thus allowing a revolution in engineering strategies. Young's problems in sometimes not expressing himself clearly were shown by his own definition of the modulus: "The modulus of the elasticity of any substance is a column of the same substance, capable of producing a pressure on its base which is to the weight causing a certain degree of compression as the length of the substance is to the diminution of its length." When this explanation was put to the Lords of the Admiralty, their clerk wrote to Young saying "Though science is much respected by their Lordships and your paper is much esteemed, it is too learned ... in short it is not understood."


Vision and colour theory

Young has also been called the founder of physiological optics. In 1793 he explained the mode in which the eye accommodates itself to vision at different distances as depending on change of the curvature of the
crystalline lens The lens, or crystalline lens, is a transparent biconvex structure in the eye that, along with the cornea, helps to refract light to be focused on the retina. By changing shape, it functions to change the focal length of the eye so that it ca ...
; in 1801 he was the first to describe
astigmatism Astigmatism is a type of refractive error due to rotational asymmetry in the eye's refractive power. This results in distorted or blurred vision at any distance. Other symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, and trouble driving at n ...
; and in his lectures he presented the hypothesis, afterwards developed by
Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Associatio ...
, (the
Young–Helmholtz theory The Young–Helmholtz theory (based on the work of Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz in the 19th century), also known as the trichromatic theory, is a theory of trichromatic color vision – the manner in which the visual system gives rise ...
), that colour perception depends on the presence in the retina of three kinds of nerve fibres. This foreshadowed the modern understanding of
colour vision Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different wavelengths (i.e., different spectral power distributions) independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of ...
, in particular the finding that the eye does indeed have three colour receptors which are sensitive to different wavelength ranges.


Young–Laplace equation

In 1804, Young developed the theory of capillary phenomena on the principle of surface tension. He also observed the constancy of the angle of contact of a liquid surface with a solid, and showed how from these two principles to deduce the phenomena of capillary action. In 1805,
Pierre-Simon Laplace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized ...
, the French philosopher, discovered the significance of meniscus radii with respect to capillary action. In 1830,
Carl Friedrich Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...
, the German mathematician, unified the work of these two scientists to derive the
Young–Laplace equation In physics, the Young–Laplace equation () is an algebraic equation that describes the capillary pressure difference sustained across the interface between two static fluids, such as water and air, due to the phenomenon of surface tension or w ...
, the formula that describes the capillary pressure difference sustained across the interface between two static fluids. Young was the first to define the term "energy" in the modern sense. He also did work on the theory of tides paralleling that of Laplace and anticipating more well-known work by Airy.


Young's equation and Young–Dupré equation

Young's equation describes the
contact angle The contact angle is the angle, conventionally measured through the liquid, where a liquid–vapor interface meets a solid surface. It quantifies the wettability of a solid surface by a liquid via the Young equation. A given system of solid, liq ...
of a liquid drop on a plane solid surface as a function of the surface free energy, the interfacial free energy and the surface tension of the liquid. Young's equation was developed further some 60 years later by Dupré to account for thermodynamic effects, and this is known as the Young–Dupré equation.


Medicine

In physiology Young made an important contribution to haemodynamics in the Croonian lecture for 1808 on the "Functions of the Heart and Arteries," where he derived a formula for the wave speed of the pulse and his medical writings included ''An Introduction to Medical Literature'', including a ''System of Practical Nosology'' (1813) and ''A Practical and Historical Treatise on Consumptive Diseases'' (1815). Young devised a rule of thumb for determining a child's drug dosage. Young's Rule states that the child dosage is equal to the adult dosage multiplied by the child's age in years, divided by the sum of 12 plus the child's age.


Languages

In an appendix to his 1796 Göttingen dissertation ''De corporis hvmani viribvs conservatricibvs'' there are four pages added proposing a universal phonetic alphabet (so as 'not to leave these pages blank'; lit.: "Ne vacuae starent hae paginae, libuit e praelectione ante disputationem habenda tabellam literarum vniuersalem raptim describere"). It includes 16 "pure" vowel symbols, nasal vowels, various consonants, and examples of these, drawn primarily from French and English. In his ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' article "Languages", Young compared the grammar and vocabulary of 400 languages. In a separate work in 1813, he introduced the term
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, 165 years after the Dutch linguist and scholar
Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (August 28, 1612 – October 3, 1653) was a Dutch scholar (his Latinized name was Marcus Zuerius Boxhornius). Born in Bergen op Zoom, he was professor at the University of Leiden. He discovered the similarity among Indo- ...
proposed the grouping to which this term refers in 1647.


Egyptian hieroglyphs

Young made significant contributions to the
decipher DECIPHER is a web-based resource and database of genomic variation data from analysis of patient DNA. It documents submicroscopic chromosome abnormalities ( microdeletions and duplications) and pathogenic sequence variants (single nucleotide ...
ment of ancient Egyptian writing systems. He started his Egyptology work rather late, in 1813, when the work was already in progress among other researchers. He began by using an Egyptian demotic alphabet of 29 letters built up by
Johan David Åkerblad Johan David Åkerblad (6 May 1763, Stockholm – 7 February 1819, Rome) was a Swedish diplomat and orientalist. Career In 1778 he began his studies of classical and oriental languages at the University of Uppsala. In 1782 he defended his gra ...
in 1802 (14 turned out to be incorrect). Åkerblad was correct in stressing the importance of the demotic text in trying to read the inscriptions, but he wrongly believed that demotic was entirely alphabetic. By 1814 Young had completely translated the "enchorial" text of the
Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancien ...
(using a list with 86 demotic words), and then studied the hieroglyphic alphabet but initially failed to recognise that the demotic and hieroglyphic texts were paraphrases and not simple translations. There was considerable rivalry between Young and Jean-François Champollion while both were working on hieroglyphic decipherment. At first they briefly cooperated in their work, but later, from around 1815, a chill arose between them. For many years they kept details of their work away from each other. Some of Young's conclusions appeared in the famous article "Egypt" he wrote for the 1818 edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. When Champollion finally published a translation of the hieroglyphs and the key to the grammatical system in 1822, Young (and many others) praised his work. Nevertheless, a year later Young published an ''Account of the Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphic Literature and Egyptian Antiquities'', with the aim of having his own work recognised as the basis for Champollion's system. Young had correctly found the sound value of six hieroglyphic signs, but had not deduced the grammar of the language. Young himself acknowledged that he was somewhat at a disadvantage because Champollion's knowledge of the relevant languages, such as Coptic, was much greater. Several scholars have suggested that Young's true contribution to Egyptology was his decipherment of the demotic script. He made the first major advances in this area; he also correctly identified demotic as being composed by both ideographic and phonetic signs. Subsequently, Young felt that Champollion was unwilling to share the credit for the decipherment. In the ensuing controversy, strongly motivated by the political tensions of that time, the British tended to champion Young, while the French mostly championed Champollion. Champollion did acknowledge some of Young's contribution, but rather sparingly. However, after 1826, when Champollion was a curator in the
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
, he did offer Young access to demotic manuscripts. In England, while Sir George Lewis still doubted Champollion's achievement as late as 1862, others were more accepting. For example, Reginald Poole, and Sir
Peter Le Page Renouf Sir Peter le Page Renouf (23 August 1822 – 14 October 1897) was a British professor, Egyptologist, and museum director, best known for his translation of '' The Book of the Dead''. Personal life Renouf was born in Guernsey on the Channel Is ...
both defended Champollion.


Music

Young developed
Young temperament "Young temperament" may refer to either of a pair of circulating temperaments described by Thomas Young in a letter dated July 9, 1799, to the Royal Society of London. The letter was read at the Society's meeting of January 16, 1800, and inclu ...
, a method of tuning musical instruments.


Legacy

Later scholars and scientists have praised Young's work although they may know him only through achievements he made in their fields. His contemporary Sir John Herschel called him a "truly original genius".
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
praised him in the 1931 foreword to an edition of
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
's ''
Opticks ''Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light'' is a book by English natural philosopher Isaac Newton that was published in English in 1704 (a scholarly Latin translation appeared in 1706). (''Opti ...
''. Other admirers include physicist
Lord Rayleigh John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, (; 12 November 1842 – 30 June 1919) was an English mathematician and physicist who made extensive contributions to science. He spent all of his academic career at the University of Cambridge. Am ...
and Nobel Physics laureate Philip Anderson. Thomas Young's name has been adopted as the name of the London-based
Thomas Young Centre The Thomas Young Centre (TYC) is an alliance of London research groups working on the theory and simulation of materials (TSM). It is named after the celebrated scientist and polymath Thomas Young (1773–1829), who lived and worked in London and ...
, an alliance of academic research groups engaged in the theory and simulation of materials.
Young Sound Young Sound ( da, Young Sund) is a marine channel with a fjord structure in King Christian X Land, East Greenland. Administratively it is part of the Northeast Greenland National Park zone. History The fjord was given the name "Young’s Bay" by ...
in eastern
Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
was named in his honour by
William Scoresby William Scoresby (5 October 178921 March 1857) was an English whaler, Arctic explorer, scientist and clergyman. Early years Scoresby was born in the village of Cropton near Pickering south-west of Whitby in Yorkshire. His father, William ...
(1789–1857).Place names, NE Greenland
/ref>


Selected writings


''A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts'' (1807, republished 2002 by Thoemmes Press).

''Miscellaneous Works of the Late Thomas Young, M.D., F.R.S.'' (1855, 3 volumes, editor John Murray, republished 2003 by Thoemmes Press).


See also

* Coandă effect *
Color space A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital represen ...
* History of energy *
Refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or ...
*
Ultrahydrophobicity Ultrahydrophobic (or superhydrophobic) surfaces are highly hydrophobic, i.e., extremely difficult to wet. The contact angles of a water droplet on an ultrahydrophobic material exceed 150°. This is also referred to as the lotus effect, after the ...


References

Works cited * *


Further reading

* - The link is to a pdf version of the paper. * * * *
Reviewed
by Nicholas Shakespeare i
''The Telegraph''
24 September 2006. *
Reviewed
by Michael Bywater i
''The New Statesman''
13 November 2006. *
Reviewed
by Simon Singh i
''The Telegraph''
26 November 2006. *

by Rosemary Hill i
''The Times''
10 December 2006. *

by PD Smith in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 20 January 2007. * - Discusses Young's theoretical and experimental work on interference * * Young's account of his hieroglyphic research. (reissued by
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
, 2010. )


External links


Thomas young the founder of wave theory
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Thomas 19th-century archaeologists 19th-century English writers 1773 births 1829 deaths Acousticians Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University of Edinburgh Medical School alumni Color scientists English Egyptologists English physicists English physiologists English Quakers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Optical physicists People from Milverton, Somerset Systems thinking University of Göttingen alumni