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Thomas Young
Born	(1773-06-13)13 June 1773 Milverton, Somerset, England
Died	10 May 1829(1829-05-10) (aged 55) London, England
Known for	Wave theory of light Double-slit experiment Astigmatism Young–Helmholtz theory Young temperament
Scientific career
Fields	Physics Physiology Egyptology
Signature

Thomas Young (13 June 1773 – 10 May 1829) was an English polymath. Young made notable scientific contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology. He "made a number of original and insightful innovations" in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs (specifically the Rosetta Stone) before Jean-François Champollion eventually expanded on his work. He was admired by, among others, Herschel, Helmholtz, Maxwell, and Einstein.

Biography

Young belonged to a Quaker family of Milverton, Somerset, where he was born in 1773, the eldest of ten children. At the age of fourteen Young had learned Greek and Latin and was acquainted with French, Italian, Hebrew, German, Chaldean, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Amharic.

Young began to study medicine in London in 1792, moved to Edinburgh in 1794, and a year later went to Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany where he obtained the degree of doctor of physics in 1796. In 1797 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In the same year he inherited the estate of his granduncle, Richard Brocklesby, which made him financially independent, and in 1799 he established himself as a physician at 48 Welbeck Street, 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 (mainly physics) at the Royal Institution. In two years he delivered 91 lectures. In 1802, he was appointed foreign secretary of the Royal Society, 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 into London. In 1816 he was secretary of a commission charged with ascertaining the precise length of the second's or seconds pendulum (the length of a pendulum whose period is exactly 2 seconds), and in 1818 he became secretary to the Board of Longitude and superintendent of the HM Nautical Almanac Office.

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 1828, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Death, legacy and reputation

Thomas Young died in London on 10 May 1829, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Giles Church in Farnborough, Kent, England. Westminster Abbey houses a white marble tablet in memory of Young bearing the epitaph by Hudson Gurney:

Sacred to the memory of Thomas Young, M.D., Fellow and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society Member of the National Institute of France; a man alike eminent in almost every department of human learning. Patient of unintermitted labour, endowed with the faculty of intuitive perception, who, bringing an equal mastery to the most abstruse investigations of letters and of science, first established the undulatory theory of light, and first penetrated the obscurity which had veiled for ages the hieroglyphs of Egypt. Endeared to his friends by his domestic virtues, honoured by the World for his unrivalled acquirements, he died in the hopes of the Resurrection of the just. — Born at Milverton, in Somersetshire, June 13th, 1773. Died in Park Square, London, May 10th, 1829, in the 56th year of his age.

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 praised him in the 1931 foreword to an edition of Newton's Opticks. Other admirers include physicist Lord Rayleigh and Nobel laureate Philip Anderson.

Thomas Young's name has been adopted as the name of the London-based Thomas Young Centre, an alliance of academic research groups engaged in the theory and simulation of materials.

Research

you're a NERD

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).

References

1. Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment: Science, Religion and Politics ... By John Gascoigne, p278
2. Dictionary Of National Biography
3. Singh, Simon (2000). The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. Anchor. ISBN 0-385-49532-3.
4. "Young, Thomas (YN797T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
5. Peacock, George (1855). Life of Thomas Young: M.D., F.R.S., &c.; and One of the Eight Foreign Associates of the National Institute of France. J. Murray.
6. Samuel Austin Allibone (1871). A Critical Dictionary of English Literature: And British and American Authors, Living and Deceased, from the Earliest Accounts to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. Containing Thirty Thousand Biographies and Literary Notices, with Forty Indexes of Subjects, Volume 3. J. B. Lippincott & Co. p. 2904.
7. Alexander Wood and Frank Oldham (1954). Thomas Young Natural Philosopher 1773–1829. Cambridge University Press. p. 331.

Further reading

• Barr, E. Scott (1963). "Men and Milestones in Optics. II. Thomas Young". Applied Optics. 2 (6): 639–647. Bibcode:1963ApOpt...2..639B. doi:10.1364/AO.2.000639.- The link is to a pdf version of the paper.
• Robinson, Andrew (2005). "A Polymath's Dilemma". Nature. 438 (7066): 291. Bibcode:2005Natur.438..291R. doi:10.1038/438291a. PMID 16292291.
• Robinson, Andrew (2006). "Thomas Young: The Man Who Knew Everything". History Today. 56: 53–57. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Robinson, Andrew (2006). The Last Man Who Knew Everything: Thomas Young, the Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone. New York: Pi Press. ISBN 0-13-134304-1.
  • Reviewed by Nicholas Shakespeare in The Telegraph, September 24, 2006.
  • Reviewed by Michael Bywater in The New Statesman, November 13, 2006.
  • Reviewed by Simon Singh in The Telegraph, November 26, 2006.
  • Reviewed by Rosemary Hill in The Times, December 10, 2006.
  • Reviewed by PD Smith in The Guardian, January 20, 2007.
• Saslow, Wayne (2002). Electricity, Magnetism, and Light. Toronton: Thomson Learning. ISBN 0-12-619455-6.- Discusses Young's theoretical and experimental work on interference
• Wood, Alex (1954). Thomas Young. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Young, Thomas (1823). An Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities. London: John Murray. Young's account of his hieroglyphic research. (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-108-01716-9)
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

• ABC Radio International program (Ockham's Razor) on Thomas Young – available for download and streaming (as of 9 July 2006)

Template:Persondata

• 1773 births
• 1829 deaths
• Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
• Color scientists
• Optical physicists
• Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
• University of Göttingen alumni
• Systems thinking
• English Egyptologists
• English physicists
• English physiologists
• English Quakers
• Fellows of the Royal Society
• Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• History of physics
• People from Milverton, Somerset