William Hyde Wollaston

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For the English philosophical writer, see William Wollaston.

William Hyde Wollaston

William Hyde Wollaston FRS (August 6, 1766 – December 22, 1828) was an English chemist and physicist who is famous for discovering two chemical elements and for developing a way to process platinum ore.

Life

He was born in East Dereham, Norfolk, the son of the priest-astronomer Francis Wollaston (1737-1815) and his wife Mary Farquier. Wollaston's father composed and published a star catalogue based on his own observations. Wollaston was the second son and one of 17 children of the Wollastons. He entered Caius College, Cambridge, and there obtained a Medical Masters in 1787, and a doctorate in Medicine 1793, after which he became a fellow of the college. While still studying, he developed an interest in astronomy, and was friendly with some of the important men in the field in England at that time. He also pursued interests in chemistry, crystallography, metallurgy and physics.

In 1789, he removed to Bury St. Edmunds, where he established a medical practice. He was not satisfied with the level of success he achieved there, and in the hopes of improving his chances for a medical career, he moved to London and applied for a position at St. George's Hospital. Another physician was awarded the post, however, and this dampened his enthusiasm for medicine, which he then abandoned in favor of other purusits.

Wollaston was elected to membership in the Royal Society of London in 1793, and became secretary of the society in 1806. He was briefly appointed temporary president in 1820 when the previous president, Sir Joseph Banks died, and was succeeded the same year by Humphrey Davy. He wrote a total of 30 memoirs that were published by the society, and several others that were published elsewhere.

The mineral wollastonite is named after him.

Work

Wollaston is perhaps best known as a chemist. He became wealthy by developing the first physico-chemical method for processing platinum ore in practical quantities, and in the process of testing this method he discovered the elements palladium (symbol Pd) in 1803 and rhodium (symbol Rh) in 1804.

Anders Gustav Ekeberg (1776-1813) discovered tantalum in 1802, however, William Hyde Wollaston declared it was identical with Niobium. Latern Heinrich Rose (1795-1864) proved in 1846 that Niobium and Tantulum were indeed different elements.

He also performed important work in electricity. In 1801, he performed an experiment showing that the electricity from friction was identical to that produced by voltaic piles. During the last years of his life he performed electrical experiments that would pave the way to the eventual design of the electric motor. However, controversy erupted when Michael Faraday, who was undoubtedly the first to construct a working electrical motor, refused to grant Wollaston credit for his earlier work.

His optical work was important as well, where he is remembered for his observations of dark Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum (1802) which eventually led to the discovery of the elements in the Sun. He also invented the camera lucida (1807), the Wollaston prism and the reflecting goniometer(1809). The last of these used the reflection of light from crystals of various substances to measure the angles that the crystal facets make with one another. These measurementss are important since the crystal structure of a mineral is related to its molecular structure.

Wollaston used his Bakerian lecture in 1805, On the Force of Percussion, to defend Gottfried Leibniz's principle of vis viva, an early formulation of the conservation of energy. He was too ill to deliver his final Bakerian in 1828 and dictated it to Henry Warburton who read it on November 20.

He also served on a royal commission that opposed adoption of the metric system (1819), and one that created the imperial gallon.

In 1824, Wollaston began suffering from bouts of blindness, where the left half of an image was blotted out. This may have been the beginning of an illness which took his life in 1829. After his death, he was found to have been afflicted with a brain tumor. He was, however, lucid until he expired.

Honors

• Fellow of the Royal Society, 1793.
  • Secretary, 1804-1816.
  • President, briefly in 1820.
  • Royal Medal, 1828.

Commemoration

• The Wollaston Medal is named for him.
• The chain silicate mineral Wollastonite is named after him.
• Wollaston Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada is named after him.

See also

• Palladium
• Rhodium

References

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<<We need at least 3 reliable references here, properly formatted.>>

• Thomson, Thomas. 1830. The History of Chemistry. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1:247-250.
• Wilson, George. 1862, Religio Chemici: Essays. London: Macmillan and Co. 253-304.
• Drake, Daniel, and Lundsford P. Yandell, eds. 1847. The Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery. 7:170-172

http://www.nycominerals.com/pdfs/AR-WWollaston.pdf

External links

• Palladium Discovery History Uses & Investments
• Rhodium and Palladium Events Surrounding Their Discoveries

Credits

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