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13 unusual facts about Humphry Davy


Agricultural chemistry

In 1815 Humphry Davy publishes Elements of agricultural chemistry, possibly one of the first scientific studies on the subject.

Catechu

Early research by Sir Humphry Davy in the early 19th century first demonstrated the use of catechu in tanning over more expensive and traditional oak extracts.

Charles F. Brush

He had a great interest in science, particularly with Humphry Davy's experiments with the arc light; he tinkered with and built simple electrical devices such as a static electricity machine at age 12, experimenting in a workshop on his parents farm.

Clathrate hydrate

Clathrate hydrates were first documented in 1810 by Sir Humphry Davy.

Copper sheathing

In the late 18th to early 19th century, Sir Humphry Davy performed many experiments where he had various thicknesses of copper submerged on the shore and then measured how much the sea water had degraded each one.

Humphry Davy

Davy is the subject of a humorous song by Richard Gendall, recorded in 1980 by folk-singer Brenda Wootton, each verse of which recalls one of Davy's major discoveries.

Lampshade

In 1879, Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison independently developed—combining and perfecting existing elements deriving from the research of Humphry Davy, De Moleyn and Göbel—the incandescent filament electric light bulb.

Ludgvan

Humphry Davy and others Also within the parish of Ludgvan lies Varfell which was the ancestral home of the Davy family, including Sir Humphry Davy.

Medway watermills

Humphry Davy was also involved at the start, but he soon withdrew.

Public lecture

In the 19th century, the popularity of the public lectures given by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution was so great that the volume of carriage traffic in Albemarle Street caused it to become the first one-way street in London.

Taradale, Victoria

The town was named after the birthplace of Sir Roderick Murchison, Tarradale House, in Scotland, and many of the streets are named after famous figures of the day in science and geology, including Charles Lyell, Roderick Murchison, Michael Faraday and Humphry Davy.

The Age of Wonder

In this book, Holmes focuses particularly on the work of Sir Joseph Banks, William Herschel and Humphry Davy.

The Judge Charles J. Vallone School

Prior to becoming the Judge Vallone School, it was the Humphry Davy School, named after the Cornish scientist.


John Meurig Thomas

With the synthetic flair of Humphry Davy and the brilliance of his hero Faraday, we are led by the author to a feast of contemporary masterworks of chemical reactivity, prodded, by design, into the service of humanity.

Samuel Soloveichik

In a series of papers he attributed the premature deaths or illnesses of the chemists Joseph Priestley, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Humphry Davy, William Cruickshank (chemist) and James Woodhouse to chemical poisoning.