Physicist and polymath — Thomas Young (Milverton 1773 – London 1829) was an English physicist, physician and polyglot, a perfect example of the universal scientist. A child prodigy, he graduated in medicine and taught at the Royal Institution in London. His fundamental contribution was the rediscovery and demonstration of the wave nature of light: with the famous double-slit experiment he showed interference, in open challenge to Newton’s then-dominant corpuscular theory. In the mechanics of materials he introduced the elasticity modulus that bears his name. He also studied the human eye, accommodation and colour vision, anticipating the trichromatic theory.
Trivia
He was not only a physicist: he made a decisive contribution to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, working on the Rosetta Stone and paving the way for Champollion.
Theories and contributions
- Double-slit experiment — The interference of light passing through two nearby slits demonstrates its wave nature.
- Young’s modulus — Constant relating stress and elastic strain of a material: .
- Trichromatic theory of vision — Colour perception arises from three types of receptors sensitive to different wavelengths.
Appears in chapters
Linked atoms
2 linked atoms.