Father Nicholas Joseph Callan (1799 – 1864) was a
IrishIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
priest and scientist from Darver,
Co. LouthCounty Louth is one of the traditional counties of Ireland and is located within the province of Leinster. It was named after the village of Louth....
,
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
. He was Professor of Natural Philosophy in
Maynooth CollegeSt Patrick's College, Maynooth is the "National Seminary for Ireland", Pontifical University, and was a college of the National University of Ireland. The college and seminary often called Maynooth College located at Maynooth, Ireland. The college was officially established as the Roman Catholic...
near Dublin from 1834, and is best known for his work on the
induction coilAn induction coil or "spark coil" is a type of disruptive discharge coil. It is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage DC supply...
.
He attended school at an academy in
DundalkDundalk is the county town of County Louth in Ireland, situated close to the border with Northern Ireland, within legally defined boundaries it is the second largest town in Ireland. It was granted its charter in 1189. It is sited on the lowest bridging point of the Castletown River...
. His local parish priest, Father Andrew Levins, then took him in hand as an altar boy and Mass server, and saw him start the priesthood at
NavanNavan is the largest town and county town or administrative capital of County Meath, Ireland. It is thought to be one of the few places in the world to have a palindromic name .-Name:...
seminary.
Father Nicholas Joseph Callan (1799 – 1864) was a
IrishIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
priest and scientist from Darver,
Co. LouthCounty Louth is one of the traditional counties of Ireland and is located within the province of Leinster. It was named after the village of Louth....
,
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
. He was Professor of Natural Philosophy in
Maynooth CollegeSt Patrick's College, Maynooth is the "National Seminary for Ireland", Pontifical University, and was a college of the National University of Ireland. The college and seminary often called Maynooth College located at Maynooth, Ireland. The college was officially established as the Roman Catholic...
near Dublin from 1834, and is best known for his work on the
induction coilAn induction coil or "spark coil" is a type of disruptive discharge coil. It is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage DC supply...
.
Early life and Education
He attended school at an academy in
DundalkDundalk is the county town of County Louth in Ireland, situated close to the border with Northern Ireland, within legally defined boundaries it is the second largest town in Ireland. It was granted its charter in 1189. It is sited on the lowest bridging point of the Castletown River...
. His local parish priest, Father Andrew Levins, then took him in hand as an altar boy and Mass server, and saw him start the priesthood at
NavanNavan is the largest town and county town or administrative capital of County Meath, Ireland. It is thought to be one of the few places in the world to have a palindromic name .-Name:...
seminary. He entered Maynooth College in 1816. In his third year at
MaynoothMaynooth is a university town located in north County Kildare, Ireland, home to both a branch of the National University of Ireland and a Papal University and Ireland's main Roman Catholic seminary, St. Patrick's College...
, Callan studied natural and experimental philosophy under
Dr. Cornelius DenvirThe Most Reverend Cornelius Denvir D.D. was an Irish Roman Catholic Prelate, mathematician, natural philosopher and former Lord Bishop of Down and Connor.-Career:...
. He introduced the experimental method into his teaching, and had an interest in
electricityElectricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge...
and
magnetismIn physics, the term magnetism is used to describe how materials respond on the microscopic level to an applied magnetic field; to categorize the magnetic phase of a material. For example, the most well known form of magnetism is ferromagnetism such that some ferromagnetic materials produce their...
.
Callan was ordained a priest in 1823 and went to Rome to study at Sapienza University, obtaining a
doctorate in divinityDoctor of Divinity is an advanced academic degree in divinity. Historically, it identified one who had been licensed by a university to teach Christian theology or related religious subjects....
in 1826. While in Rome he became acquainted with the work of the pioneers in electricity such as
Luigi Galvani Luigi Galvani was an Italian physician and physicist who lived and died in Bologna. In 1771, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs twitched when struck by a spark.ref> – Eric Weisstein’s World of Scientific Biolgraph. This was one of the first forays into the study of...
(1737-1798) who was a pioneer in modern
obstetricsObstetrics is the surgical specialty dealing with the care of women and their children during pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal. Midwifery is the non-medical equivalent...
and
Alessandro VoltaCount Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian physicist known especially for the development of the first electric cell in 1800.-Early life and works:...
(1745-1827) who is know especially for the development of the electric battery. In 1826, Callan returned to Maynooth as the new Professor of
Natural PhilosophyNatural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
(now called
physicsPhysics is a natural science; it is the study of matter and its motion through spacetime and all that derives from these, such as energy and force...
), where he also began working with electricity in his basement laboratory at the college.
Induction Coil
Influenced by
William SturgeonWilliam Sturgeon was an English physicist and inventor who made the first electromagnets, and invented the first English practical electric motor....
and
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
, Callan began work on the idea of the
induction coilAn induction coil or "spark coil" is a type of disruptive discharge coil. It is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage DC supply...
in 1834. He developed his first induction coil in 1836 . An induction coil produces an intermittent high-voltage
alternating currentIn alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again...
from a low-voltage
direct currentDirect current is the undirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also be through...
supply. It has a primary coil consisting of a few turns of thick wire wound around an iron core and subjected to a low voltage (usually from a
batteryAn electrical battery is a combination of one or more electrochemical cells, used to convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first Voltaic pile in 1800 by Alessandro Volta, the battery has become a common power source for many household and industrial...
). Wound on top of this is a secondary coil made up of many turns of thin wire. An iron armature and make-and-break mechanism repeatedly interrupts the current to the primary coil, producing a high-voltage, rapidly alternating current in the secondary circuit.
Callan invented the induction coil because he needed to generate a higher level of electricity than currently available. He took a bar of soft iron, about long, and wrapped it around with two lengths of copper wire, each about long. Callan connected the beginning of the first coil to the beginning of the second. Finally, he connected a battery, much smaller than the enormous contrivance just described, to the beginning and end of winding one. He found that when the battery contact was broken, a shock could be felt between the first terminal of the first coil and the second terminal of the second coil.
Further experimentation showed how the coil device could bring the shock from a small battery up the strength level of a big battery. So, Callan tried making a bigger coil. With a battery of only 14 seven inch (178 mm) plates, the device produced power enough for an electric shock "so strong that a person who took it felt the effects of it for several days." Callan thought of his creation as a kind of
electromagnetAn electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. The magnetic field disappears when the current ceases.- Introduction :...
; but what he actually made was a primitive induction transformer.
Callan's induction coil also used an interrupter that consisted of a rocking wire that repeatedly dipped into a small cup of
mercuryMercury , also called quicksilver or hydrargyrum , is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80...
(similar to Page). Because of the action of the interrupter, which could make and break the current going into the coil, he called his device the "repeater." Actually, this device was the world's first
transformerA transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core, and thus a varying magnetic field...
. Callan had induced a high voltage in the second wire, starting with a low voltage in the adjacent first wire. And the faster he interrupted the current, the bigger the spark. In 1837 he produced his giant induction machine: using a mechanism from a clock to interrupt the current 20 times a second, it generated sparks, an estimated 600,000 volts and the largest artificial bolt of electricity then seen.
The 'Maynooth Battery' and other inventions
Callan experimented with designing batteries after he found the models available to him at the time to be insufficient for research in electromagnetism. Although a recent article gives the date of the 'Maynooth Battery' as 1854,
The Year-book of Facts in Science and Art, published in 1849, has an article titled "The Maynooth Battery" which begins "We noticed this new and cheap Voltaic Battery in the Year-book of Facts, 1848, p. 14,5. The inventor, the Rev. D. Callan, Professor of Natural Philosophy in Maynooth College, has communicated to the Philosophical Magazine, No. 219, some additional experiments, comparing the power of a cast-iron (or Maynooth) battery with that of a Grove's of equal size." Accordingly, the Maynooth Battery should be dated to 1848.
Some previous batteries had used rare metals such as platinum or unresponsive materials like carbon and zinc. Callan found that he could use inexpensive cast-iron instead of platinum or carbon. For his Maynooth battery he used iron casting for the outer casing and placed a zinc plate was immersed in a porous pot (pot that had an inside and outside camber for holding two different types of acid) in the centre. In the single fluid cell he disposed of the porous pot and two different fluids. He was able to build a battery with just a single solution.
Callan also while experimenting with batteries built the world’s largest battery at that time. He joined 577 batteries together using over 30 gallons of acid. He measured how much his electromagnet could weigh with various batteries to measure their strength as the instruments to measure current or voltages had not yet been invented. His best effort lifted 2 tons. The Maynooth battery went into commercial production in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
.
Callan also discovered an early form of galvanisation to protect iron from rusting when he was experimenting on battery design, and he patented the idea.
He died in 1864 and is buried cemetery on the south campus of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.
Legacy
The Callan Building on the north campus of NUI Maynooth, a university which was part of
St Patrick's CollegeSt Patrick's College, Maynooth is the "National Seminary for Ireland", Pontifical University, and was a college of the National University of Ireland. The college and seminary often called Maynooth College located at Maynooth, Ireland. The college was officially established as the Roman Catholic...
until 1997, was named in his honour. In addition, Callan Hall in the south campus, was used through the 1990s for first year science lectures including experimental & mathematical physics, chemistry and biology.