Humphry Davy Essay

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The chemist I did my project on is Humphry Davy. He was born on December 17, 1778.
The place he was born at was Penzance in Cornwall. Then at the age of 19 he apprenticed a surgeon and went to Bristol to study science. While there he investigated gases. There he prepared and inhaled nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and in 1800 published the results of his work in 'Researches, Chemical and Philosophical'. Davy delivered his first lecture at the Royal Institution in 1801 and instantly became a popular figure there. His tenure as a lecturer was immensely successful. During his second Bakerian lecture at the Royal Society in 1807, he made public his tremendous achievement – the decomposition by galvanism of the fixed alkalis. He performed a demonstration that these alkalis are simply metallic oxides. These discoveries are said to be the most important contribution made to the “Philosophical Transactions” since Sir Isaac Newton. While there he was a great success, with his lectures soon becoming a draw for fashionable London society. Then he became a follower of the Royal Society in 1803 and was awarded its Copley Medal in 1805.
In 1800, the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta had introduced the first battery. Davy used this for what is now called electrolysis and was able to isolate a series of substances for the first time - potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium and magnesium the following year. He also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy was then considered one of Britain's leading scientists and was knighted in 1812. In 1813, Davy set off on a two year trip to Europe. He visited Paris - even though Britain and France were at war, where he collected...

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...828 he again left England for Illyria, and in the winter fixed his residence at Rome, from where he sent to the Royal Society his "Remarks on the Electricity of the Torpedo", written at Trieste in October. This, with the exception of a posthumous work, Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher was the final production of his pen. On February 20, 1829 he suffered a second attack of paralysis which rendered his right side quite powerless.
Like many chemists of the period, Davy’s health was compromised by his exposure to compounds and chemicals. In one experiment he almost lost his life by inhaling water gas, a combustible mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. These experiences left him in a weakened state by 1827, when he resigned the various scientific posts he held. Two years later, in 1829, he suffered a stroke in Geneva, Switzerland, and died.

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