AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Steam engine inventor black8/11/2023 ![]() ![]() In this he was successful with audience attendance at his lectures increasing from year to year for more than thirty years. Īt this point he gave up research and devoted himself exclusively to teaching. His position at Glasgow University was filled by Alexander Stevenson. In 1766, treading in the footsteps of his friend and former teacher at the University of Glasgow, Black succeeded William Cullen as Professor of Medicine and Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh (Cullen had moved to Edinburgh in 1755). He used this phenomenon to illustrate that carbon dioxide is produced by animal respiration and microbial fermentation. ![]() ![]() Black also found that when bubbled through an aqueous solution of lime ( calcium hydroxide), it would precipitate calcium carbonate. He found that limestone ( calcium carbonate) could be heated or treated with acids to yield a gas he called "fixed air." He observed that the fixed air was denser than air and did not support either flame or animal life. Black's discovery of the latent heat of water would have been interesting to Watt, informing his attempts to improve the efficiency of the steam engine invented by Thomas Newcomen and develop the science of thermodynamics.īlack also explored the properties of a gas produced in various reactions. Black provided significant financing and other support for Watt's early research in steam power. Black and James Watt became friends after meeting around 1757 while both were at Glasgow. The theory ultimately proved important not only in the development of abstract science but in the development of the steam engine. He also showed that different substances have different specific heats. Black's theory of latent heat was one of his more-important scientific contributions, and one on which his scientific fame chiefly rests. The theory of latent heat marks the beginning of thermodynamics. From these observations, he concluded that the heat applied must have combined with the ice particles and boiling water and become latent. Additionally, Black observed that the application of heat to boiling water does not result in a rise in temperature of a water/steam mixture, but rather an increase in the amount of steam. In 1761, he deduced that the application of heat to ice at its melting point does not cause a rise in temperature of the ice/water mixture, but rather an increase in the amount of water in the mixture. In 1757, Black was appointed Regius Professor of the Practice of Medicine at the University of Glasgow. The world's first ice-calorimeter, used in the winter of 1782–83, by Antoine Lavoisier and Pierre-Simon Laplace, to determine the heat evolved in various chemical changes, calculations which were based on Joseph Black's prior discovery of latent heat. Throughout his career he used a variety of diagrams and formulas to teach his University of Edinburgh students how to manipulate affinity through different kinds of experimentation. He used the term affinity to describe the force that held such combinations together. He added the principle of Air when his experiments showed the presence of carbon dioxide, which he called fixed air, thus contributing to pneumatic chemistry.īlack's research was guided by questions relating to how the principles combined with each other in various different forms and mixtures. Like most 18th-century experimentalists, Black's conceptualisation of chemistry was based on five principles of matter: Water, Salt, Earth, Fire and Metal. During his studies he wrote a doctorate thesis on the treatment of kidney stones with the salt magnesium carbonate. In 1746, at the age of 18, he entered the University of Glasgow, studying there for four years before spending another four at the University of Edinburgh, furthering his medical studies. He was educated at home until the age of 12, after which he attended grammar school in Belfast. His mother was from an Aberdeenshire family that had connections with the wine business and his father was from Belfast, Ireland, and worked as a factor in the wine trade. The chemistry buildings at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow are named after Black.īlack was born "on the banks of the river Garonne" in Bordeaux, France, the sixth of the 12 children of Margaret Gordon ( d. He was Professor of Anatomy and Chemistry at the University of Glasgow for 10 years from 1756, and then Professor of Medicine and Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 1766, teaching and lecturing there for more than 30 years. Joseph Black (16 April 1728 – 6 December 1799) was a Scottish physicist and chemist, known for his discoveries of magnesium, latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. Joseph Black plaque by James Tassie, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |