Born in Co.Carlow in 1820, John Tyndall eventually became one of the most important scientists of the 19th Century. He was also the first to successfully answer the question “Why is the sky blue?”
Following on from Newton’s work on visible light in the 1660s, Tyndall suggested that the blue of the sky is due to the scattering of the sun’s light by molecules in the atmosphere. Known as the Tyndall effect, or nephelometry, this phenomenon is the basis of instruments such as the spectrometer.
Fire Optics
Tyndall was an inventor as well as researcher. He invented the fireman’s respirator and improved on the fog horn, but his most important invention was his “light pipe”, which he originally constructed using just a torch and a bucket of water. The modern version of this “light pipe” is the gastroscope, which is used in hospitals today to view the inside of a patient’s stomach.
Tyndall’s “light-pipe” eventually led to the development of fibre optics.
When not in the lab, he loved to study glacier forms in the Alps. He climbed Mont Blanc several times and eventually became the first person to climb Weisshorn in 1860. In the same year, he published a book on his adventures called “Glaciers of the Alps”.
In his lifetime, Tyndall also made important contributions to thermodynamics, magnetism, electricity, telecommunications and electronics. As an educationalist he influenced the direction of science teaching at university and school levels.
Read more
Read more on the NASA Earth Observatory website
