Silvanus Phillips Thompson FRS (19 June 1851 – 12 June 1916) was a professor of physics at the City and Guilds Technical College in
FinsburyFinsbury is a district of central London, England. It lies immediately north of the City of London and Clerkenwell, west of Shoreditch, and south of Islington and City Road. It is in the south of the London Borough of Islington. The Finsbury Estate is in the western part of the district...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He was elected to the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
in 1891 and was known for his work as an electrical engineer and as an author. Thompson's most enduring publication is his 1910 text
Calculus Made EasyCalculus Made Easy is a 1910 book on calculus by Silvanus P. Thompson, considered a classic and elegant introduction to the subject. The original text continues to be available as of 2008 from Macmillan and Co., but a 1998 update by Martin Gardner is available from St...
, which teaches the fundamentals of calculus, and is still in print. Thompson also wrote a popular physics text,
Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism, as well as biographies of Lord Kelvin and
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
.
Silvanus Thompson was born in the year of the Great Exhibition of 1851 to a Quaker family in
YorkYork is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Silvanus Phillips Thompson FRS (19 June 1851 – 12 June 1916) was a professor of physics at the City and Guilds Technical College in
FinsburyFinsbury is a district of central London, England. It lies immediately north of the City of London and Clerkenwell, west of Shoreditch, and south of Islington and City Road. It is in the south of the London Borough of Islington. The Finsbury Estate is in the western part of the district...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He was elected to the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
in 1891 and was known for his work as an electrical engineer and as an author. Thompson's most enduring publication is his 1910 text
Calculus Made EasyCalculus Made Easy is a 1910 book on calculus by Silvanus P. Thompson, considered a classic and elegant introduction to the subject. The original text continues to be available as of 2008 from Macmillan and Co., but a 1998 update by Martin Gardner is available from St...
, which teaches the fundamentals of calculus, and is still in print. Thompson also wrote a popular physics text,
Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism, as well as biographies of Lord Kelvin and
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
.
Biography
Silvanus Thompson was born in the year of the Great Exhibition of 1851 to a Quaker family in
YorkYork is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. His father served as a master at the Quaker School at Bootham in York. In 1873 Silvanus Thompson was made the science master at
Bootham SchoolBootham School is an independent Quaker boarding school in the city of York in North Yorkshire, England. It was founded by the Religious Society of Friends in 1823. It is close to York Minster. Jonathan Taylor is the current headmaster who replaced Ian Small in 2004...
.
On 11 February 1876 he heard Sir William Crookes give an evening discourse at the
Royal InstitutionThe Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research, based in London...
on
The Mechanical Action of Light when Crookes demonstrated his light mill or
radiometerThe Crookes radiometer, also known as the light mill, consists of an airtight glass bulb, containing a partial vacuum. Inside are a set of vanes which are mounted on a spindle. The vanes rotate when exposed to light, with faster rotation for more intense light, providing a quantitative measurement...
. Thompson was intrigued and stimulated and developed a major interest in light and optics (his other main interest being
electromagnetismElectromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field, a field that exerts a force on particles with the property of electric charge and is reciprocally affected by the presence and motion of such particles....
). In 1876 he was appointed as a lecturer in
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...
at
University College, BristolUniversity College, Bristol was an educational institution which existed from 1876 to 1909. It was the predecessor institution to the University of Bristol, which gained a Royal Charter in 1909...
, and later was made Professor in 1878 at the age of 27.
A major concern of Thompson was the area of technical education and he made a series of continental tours to France, Germany and Switzerland to compare the continental approach to that in the UK. In 1879 he gave a paper at the
Royal Society of ArtsThe Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity . It was founded in 1754 and was granted a Royal Charter in 1847...
on
Apprenticeship, Scientific and Unscientific in which he detailed the deficiencies in technical education in England. In the discussion, the opinion was expressed that England was too conservative to make use of trade schools and that continental methods would not be applicable in the UK. Thompson recognized that technical education was the means by which scientific knowledge could be put into action and spent the rest of his life putting his vision into practical realization.
In 1878 the
City and Guilds of London InstituteThe City and Guilds of London Institute is a United Kingdom examining and accreditation body for vocational, managerial and engineering training, offering over 500 qualifications in 28 industry areas, spanning from entry level to the equivalent of a postgraduate degree.Incorporated in 1880, the...
for the Advancement of Technical Education was founded.
FinsburyFinsbury is a district of central London, England. It lies immediately north of the City of London and Clerkenwell, west of Shoreditch, and south of Islington and City Road. It is in the south of the London Borough of Islington. The Finsbury Estate is in the western part of the district...
Technical College was a teaching institution created by the City and Guilds Institute and it was as its Principal and Professor of Physics that Thompson was to devote the next 30 years.
Thompson’s particular gift was in his ability to communicate difficult scientific concepts in a clear and interesting manner. He attended and lectured at the Royal Institution giving the
Christmas lecturesThe Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have been held in London since 1825. Each year, the Royal Institution presents a series of lectures on a single topic. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner...
in 1896 on
Light, Visible and Invisible with an account of
RöntgenThe röntgen or roentgen is a unit of measurement for ionizing radiation , and is named after the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. Adopted in 1928, 1 R is the amount of radiation required to liberate positive and negative charges of one electrostatic unit of charge in 1 cm³ of dry air at standard...
Light. He was an impressive lecturer and the radiologist AE Barclay said that: “None who heard him could forget the vividness of the word-pictures he placed before them.”
Thompson repeated Röntgen's experiments on the day after the discovery was announced in the UK and following this gave the first public demonstration of the new rays at the Clinical Society of London on 30 March 1896.
William Hale WhiteWilliam Hale White , known by his pseudonym Mark Rutherford, was a British writer and civil servant.-Life and career:White was born in Bedford and educated at Bedford Modern School...
said: “The audience was thrilled, most seeing for the first time actual pieces of bones and metal. Silvanus Thompson was a prince among lecturers. I have never heard a better demonstration or attended a more memorable medical meeting.”
He was the first President of the Röntgen Society (later to become the British Institute of Radiology). He described the society as being between medicine, physics and photography. It was his genius that put its stamp on that society and has made it into the rich amalgam of medical, scientific and technical members that it is today. As he said in his presidential address to the Röntgen Society: “The pioneers have opened the way into the wilderness; they are now being followed by those who will occupy the new territory, complete its survey, and map out its features. Not until every corner is explored and charted will the work of our Society be ended.”
In 1900 Thompson was involved in the unworthy
WhitehallWhitehall is a road in Westminster in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards traditional Charing Cross, now at the southern end of Trafalgar Square and marked by the statue of Charles I, which is often regarded as the heart of London...
attack on
MarconiMarchese Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, best known for his development of a radiotelegraph system, which served as the foundation for the establishment of numerous affiliated companies worldwide...
's patents, when the Post Office commissioned both him and
Professor Oliver LodgeSir Oliver Joseph Lodge, FRS was a physicist and writer involved in the development of key patents in wireless telegraphy . Lodge, in his Royal Institution lectures , coined the term "coherer." He gained the "syntonic" patent from the United States Patent Office in 1898...
to produce secret reports. The purpose was either to declare the
Marconi CompanyThe Marconi Company Ltd. was founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 as The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company...
patents invalid, or to produce similar, but technically different equipment: the latter involved Thompson. When the
AdmiraltyThe Admiralty was formerly the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. Originally exercised by a single person, the office of Lord High Admiral was from the 18th century onward almost invariably put "in commission", and was exercised by a Board of Admiralty.In...
received the two reports it was the pioneer of wireless telegraphy Captain H Jackson, then commanding HMS Vulcan, whose opinion led a senior naval officer to report, "it would be unworthy to try to evade the Marconi Company's patent."
Thompson was committed to truth in all aspects and his 1915
Swarthmore LectureSwarthmore Lecture is one of a series of lectures, started in 1908, addressed to Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends .The preface to the very first lecture explains the purpose of the series.
...
delivered to the Society of Friends was
The Quest for Truth, indicating his belief in truth and integrity in all aspects of our lives. Thompson remained an active member of the
Religious Society of FriendsThe Religious Society of Friends is a religious movement, whose members are known as Friends or Quakers. The roots of this movement are with some 17th century Christian English dissenters, but today the movement has branched out into many independent national and regional organizations, called...
, throughout his life
Literary works
Thompson wrote many books of a technical nature particularly
Elementary Lessons in Electricity & Magnetism (1890),
Dynamo Electrical Machinery (1896) and the classic
Calculus Made Easy which was first published in 1910, and is still in print.
Thompson had many interests including painting, literature, the history of science, and working in his greenhouse. He wrote biographies of
Michael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
and Lord Kelvin. He also wrote about
William GilbertWilliam Gilbert, also known as Gilbard, was an English physician and natural philosopher. He was an early Copernican, and passionately rejected both the prevailing Aristotelian philosophy and the Scholastic method of university teaching...
, the Elizabethan physician, and produced an edition of Gilbert’s
De Magnete at the Chiswick Press in 1900. In 1912, Thompson published the first English translation of
Treatise on Light by Christian Huygens.
His scientific library of historical and working books is preserved at the
Institution of Electrical EngineersThe Institution of Electrical Engineers or IEE was a British professional organisation for electronics, electrical, manufacturing and IT professionals. In 2006 it merged with the IIE to form the Institution of Engineering and Technology...
and is a wonderful collection (he was President of the IEE). It includes many classic books on
electricityElectricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge...
,
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...
and
opticsOptics is the branch of physics which studies the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
. The collection consists of 900 rare books and 2500 nineteenth and early twentieth century titles, with approximately 200 autograph letters.
Miscellanea
- The first publication of Thompson's Calculus Made Easy listed only "FRS" as the author.
- Thompson is one of the individuals represented on the Engineers Walk in Bristol, England.
- Thompson appears as a character in Edison's Conquest of Mars
Edison's Conquest of Mars, by Garrett P. Serviss, is one of the many science fiction novels published in the nineteenth century. Although science fiction was not at the time thought of as a distinct literary genre, it was a very popular literary form, with almost every fiction magazine regularly...
, where he voyages to Mars along with a number of other prominent scientists of his period to fight the Martians from War of the Worlds.
- Thompson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1891 and was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2 June...
in 1894.
Further reading
Sorted by date.
- Obituary in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 1917–1918, vol. 94, pp xvi-xix
- Obituary in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1917, vol. 77, pp 305-307 – Online at ADS
- Thompson, J. S. and Thompson, H. G., Silvanus Thompson, His Life and Letters, Unwin, London, 1920.
- Lynch, A. C., "Silvanus Thompson: teacher, researcher, historian," IEE Proceedings, 1989, vol. 136, A(6), pp 306–312.
- Gay, H. and Barrett, A., "Should the Cobbler Stick to his Last? Silvanus Phillips Thompson and the Making of a Scientific Career," British Journal for the History of Science, 2002, vol. 35, 151–86 – Scholar search }}