Forf^s The Irish Innovator Celebrating the traditional Irish ability to innovate in science and technology
0 Aer Lingus Young Scientists
at the Aer Lingus Young Scientists Exhibition January 4-7, 1996
John Jellett ( 18 17. 1888) John Hewitt Jellett was born in Cashel, Co. Tipperary. He was educated in Trinity College Dublin, eventually becoming Provost of that seat of learning from 1881-1888. He was a man of wide interests, his published books including: A treatise on the calculus of variations (1850), An examination of some of the moral difficulties of the Old Testament (1867), A treatise on the theory of friction (1872), and The efficacy of prayer (1878). In 1863, he invented a new saccharimeter - an instrument for measuring the sugar content of solutions. It made use of a special analysing prism developed by Jellett, and the attractive instrument was constructed by the Dublin firm of Spencer & Son. The operation of the instrument depends on the fact that a sugar solution will rotate the plane of polarised light, the degree of rotation being a measure of the amount of sugar in the solution. Polarisation of light is familiar to those who use polarised glasses. These remove part of the light entering the eye, thus reducing glare. If one such lens is rotated in front of the other, it will be seen that, at one point, the object can be seen most clearly but, when the lens is at right angles, nothing will be seen.
Jellett's instrument includes improvements on previous saccharimeters. In particular, it measures the length of a liquid (e.g. French oil of turpentine - of opposite rotating power to the sample being analysed), which is needed to give a minimum reading in the analyser for the known and unknown sugar samples; and it uses a specially cut and pasted analysing prism which allows more accurate determination of this point by comparing two images observed simultaneously in the eyepiece.
Father Hugh O 'Toole
(1855-1923) ,
Hugh 0' Toole was born in Attanagh, Co. Laois, and was a teacher in Blackrock College. He invented, around 1898, an improved form of the hydrometer, an instrument which could also be used to measure sugar content - this time using specific gravity. His slim glass instrument was suspended in a beaker of the solution, and also in a solution of water, and weights were added to a tray on top until marks on the instrument were at the surface of the liquids, when the specific gravity of the unknown could be calculated.
Jellett's instrument uses special prisms of a mineral called Iceland Spar, which also polarise light. By measuring the degree of rotation of a beam of light after it has passed through one such prism, the sugar solution, and then a second prism, the quantity of sugar in the solution can be Jellett's saccharimeter and O'Tooles hydrometer (not to scale)
determined.
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Irish contributors to the development of Telegraphy and Wireless Communication William Thomson , Lord
Kelvin (1824 -1907)
William Thomson was born in Belfast, the son of the professor of mathematics at the Academical Institution ("Inst") there. His family background in Northern Ireland played a very important part in his outlook on life and his approach to science, for he was no ivory tower theorist, but a man of remarkable intellect who addressed and resolved many practical challenges of industrial relevance. The family moved to Glasgow in 1932 and William was appointed professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow University in 1846, a position he held for 53 years. He was one of the most outstand-
Island in Kerry to Hearts Content In Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. He received his knighthood for this work. Thomson was actually aboard the Great Eastern, the ship which laid the cable, but he has a greater nautical claim to fame. He improved compasses for navigation following the introduction of iron ships, and his new compass was adopted by all British Navy vessels. He formed a working relationship, and later a company, with the Glasgow instrument maker James White, and together they produced and sold a new generation of precise electrical instruments patented by Thomson.
ing physicists of the nineteenth century. In the process he was knighted in 1866, and created a peer, Baron Kelvin of Largs, in 1892.
He carried out pioneering work on mechanical energy and heat, the basis of modern low-temperature engineering . To-day's "absolute" scale of temperature , measured in degrees Kelvin, is called after him. He was the brains behind the first successful trans-Atlantic telecommunications cable. The first cable, laid in 1858, was a failure, largely due to poor insulation and the large voltages which were used. Thomson invented a very sensitive mirror galvanometer which could detect extremely feeble signals, and this was the essential element in the successful cable of 1866, which ran from Valentia
He is commemorated by a statue at Botanic Gardens Belfast, which has the inscription "He elucidated the laws of nature for the service of man".
Robert Halpin (1836-1894)
George Francis FitzGerald
The ship, the Great Eastern, which laid the successful Atlantic cable, had, as first officer and key navigator, another Irishman Captain Robert Halpin, who was born in Wicklow town, the thirteenth child of James Halpin and Anne Halbert. "The greatest ship on earth", was 680 feet long and weighed 22,000 tons. Due to a series of misfortunes, it had not been a success as a passenger ship but, as a cable-laying vessel, it achieved great fame, and Halpin took over as captain at the age of 32. By laying cables connecting Brest and Newfoundland, Portugal and Brazil, Suez and Australia (via Aiden, India and Singapore), "Mr Cable"
George Francis FitzGerald was born in Monsktown, Co. Dublin. He was one of Ireland's foremost physicists. His FitzGeraldLorentz contraction was a key step towards Einstein's theory of relativity. In the field of communications, he was influential in achieving recognition for the work of James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz, scientific work which was at the basis of the subsequent development of "wireless" communication. Indeed, he acted as a advisor and confidant to many young Irish physicists, like Thomas Preston, Sir Joseph Larmor, and Sir John Townsend, all of whom achieved distinction at home or abroad.
(1 851.19 01)
gained recognition and wealth. He and his family returned to Ireland and built Tinakilly House, overlooking Wicklow Bay, where they lived from the early 188os. Following the death of Parnell in 1891, Halpin stood for election as Unionist MP for Wicklow in the election of 1892, but was defeated.
FitzGerald was the nephew of George Johnstone Stoney (18261911), from Oakley Park, Co. Offaly, who named the electron in 1891.
Guglielmo Marconi
(1874-1937)
cut himself when trimming his toenails, and died from the result-
Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy, but to an Irish mother, Annie Jameson, of the well-known distilling family. His
ing gangrene.
first wife was also Irish - Beatrice O'Brien.
He had an unfortunate early death less than two years later. He
Marconi was the first to use "wireless" telegraphy to send signals successfully from one place to another in 1895, giving birth to the age of radio and TV, which have so revolutionised our lives. Many of his successful experiments were carried out in Ireland, and indeed the first wireless newspaper report from sea to shore gave the results of the Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) regatta to the Dublin Daily Express in 1898.
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John Jo
ly
Lucien Bull
(1857-1933)
john Joly was born in Hollywood House (the Church of Ireland Rectory), Bracknagh, Co. Offaly, and entered Trinity College in 1876 - remaining there for the rest of his productive life. He was Professor of Geology and Mineralogy from 1897-1933. Joly had a wide range of interests and made many contributions to science, writing about 270 scientific papers and several books. He invented quite a few scientific instruments, the best known being his meldometer, steam calorimeter, and photometer. The age of the earth One of his claims to fame was the making of an accurate estimate of the age of a geological period - an essential step in estimating the age of the Earth. Working in collaboration with Sir Ernest Rutherford, and using the decay in radioactivity in minerals, he estimated, in 1913, that the beginning of the Devonian period (the geological period between the Silurian and Carboniferous) was not less than 400 million years ago, an age which is in line with that accepted to-day. This makes the Earth about 4,500 million years old. A previous Trinity academic Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1686) - using chronological information in the Bible, estimate the date of creation as 4004 BC!
Cancer treatment Another practical achievement was loly's successful collaboration with Dr Walter Stevenson of Dr Steeven's Hospital in Dublin (of which Joly was a Governor), in the use of radiation for the treatment of cancer. He had used radium bromide sealed in glass tubes to treat successfully an otherwise intractable "facial rodent ulcer", brought to his attention by Dr Stevenson, at that time a junior surgeon in the hospital. In 1914, he persuaded the Royal Dublin Society to set up the Radium Institute, and this provided capillary tubes containing radium emanation (radon) to hospitals for many years for the treatment of tumours.
Harry Ferguson (1884-196o)
(1876.1972)
Lucien Bull was born in Dublin, but carried out much of his work in France. While he was acting as assistant to Etienne-Jules Marey of Paris, he pioneered and developed ultra rapid cinematography and, as early as 1902, had recorded 500 images per second. He was able, for example, to film the wing oscillations of insects. In 1952, he recorded one million images per second. He became Director of the Institut Marey in 1914 and President of the Institute of Scientific Cinematography in 1948.
Harry Ferguson was born in Growell, near Dromore, in Co. Down. An engineering whizz-kid, he left school at age 14 to work on his father's farm, but soon became an apprentice to his brother's car and cycle repair business. He built and flew his own aeroplane, and got involved in motor racing. But his chief claim to fame was his remodelling of the farm tractor and related ploughing instruments. He developed his famous light-weight tractor, with integrated accessories using hydraulic control.
The first practical method of colour photography In 1894, Joly patented his method for colour photography, the first successful method of producing colour photographs from a single plate. What he did was effectively to place three filters on the one glass screen by ruling fine lines (about 200 per inch) successively in red/orange, yellow/green, and blue/violet. The resulting transparency, when viewed through a similar screen, "appears in vivid colour and with all the realism and relief conferred by colour and colour perspective".
Aw&.. The
FERGUSON SYSTEM 18
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Kathleen Lonsdale
Ernest Walton
(1903-1971)
As noted earlier, one of the founders of the Royal Society was Robert Boyle. The first president of the Society was the mathematician William, Second Viscount Brouncker (c162o-1684), who was born at Castle Lyons in Co. Cork, not far from the birthplace of Boyle - Lismore in Co. Waterford.
hexagonal and planar, when she obtained the crystal structure of hexamethyl benzene while working at the Royal Institution in London. She was Professor of Chemistry at University College London from 1948-1968. She also edited the first three volumes of the International Tables forX-ray Crystallography (1952, 1959 and 1962), texts still in use everywhere to-day.
But it took the Society 285 years to admit women to Fellowship: and the first one was Irish - Kathleen Lansdale, born at Newbridge in Co. Kildare, who became an FRS in 1945. She became a Vice-President of the Society in 1960, having been appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1956. She was also, in 1968, the first woman President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This is a fine record of achievement for the tenth child of the Newbridge postmaster, Harry Yardley and his wife Jessie Cameron. Kathleen wrote: "Perhaps, for my sake, it was well that there was no testimony against a high birth rate in those days". She also wrote of her father: "I think that it was from him that I inherited my passion for facts", - a passion which she put to good use. She married Thomas Lonsdale in 1927. Following a brilliant university career, she was immediately offered a research post at University College London to study the crystal structure of organic compounds using X-rays.
John Desmond Bernal (1901-1971), I. D. Bernal was born in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, and was another Irish-born scientist who made fundamental contributions to crystallography, working, for example, on the structure of the vitamins and sex hormones. Nicknamed "The Sage", he stands in contrast to Kathleen Lonsdale, a pacifist who spent a month in prison for failing to register for civil defence or any other national service. Bernal served as adviser to Lord Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, and he was one of the first to land on the Normandy beaches on D-day. Later, however, he was a founder member of the World Peace Council, and was awarded the Lenin Prize for Peace.
(1903-1995)
Ernest Walton was born in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, the son of a Methodist Minister. He attended Methodist College, Belfast ("Methody"), and entered Trinity College Dublin in 1922, graduating with double first class honours in experimental science (with a gold medal) and mathematics in 1926. Following a strong recommendation from TCD, he obtained a place at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, working under the direction of Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937). There he collaborated with John Cockcroft (1897-1967) in the building of a linear accelerator which could accelerate protons to energies of 700,000 electron volts. With this apparatus, he and Cockcroft "split the atom" in 1932. They received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951. Walton observed flashes on the small screen in the little hut at the base of the apparatus. He described it as follows: "In the microscope there was a wonderful sight - lots of scintillations, looking just like stars flashing out momentarily on a clear dark night".
Beckett (1969), an Seamus Heaney (1995). It is clear, and recognised the world over, that the Irish have a gift with language. But is not so widely recognised, especially at home, that we have arguably as great a gift with scientific and technological innovation. There are other scientific and medical Nobel prizewinners with Irish connections. The mother of Guglielmo Marconi (physics 1909) was Annie Jameson of the Irish distilling family. Erwin Schrodinger (physics 1933) worked at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies from 1940-1956 and became an Irish citizen in 1948. Richard Synge (chemistry 1952) came from a Liverpool Irish family. Other winners of Nobel prizes in science and medicine have Irish family names, including Cronin, Martin, Moore, Murphy, Murray and Purcell. No-one appears to have taken the trouble to trace their Irish connections.
What they actually did was bombard a lithium target with accelerated protons, and observed scintillations characteristic of alpha particles (helium nuclei). The lithium atom had been split into two, with the release of excess energy from the conversion of some of the mass, in accordance with Einstein's well-known equation E = mc2 (Energy = mass times the speed of light squared). This was the beginning of accelerator-based experimental nuclear physics, which has taught us so much about the nature of matter.
Pioneering work at this interface between physics and chemistry was to be her life's work, in addition to raising three children. She was the first to demonstrate that the benzene ring was
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Walton returned to Trinity College in 1934. He remains the only Irish-born scientific Nobel Laureate, contrasting with four in literature - W.B. Yates (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel
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Select Bibliography
THE ONE UNSPLITTABLE
Dictionary of national biography, London 1890.1980. Dictionary of Irish biography, by Henry Boylan, Dublin 1988. Dictionary of Ulster biography, by Kate Newman, Belfast 1993. Dictionary of scientific biography, Editor-in-chief, Charles Gillispie, New York 1981. Biographical encyclopedia of scientists, second edition, Edited by John Daintith et.al., Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol 1994. Some people and places in Irish science and technology, Edited by Charles Mollan, William Davis and Brendan Finucane, Dublin 1985. More people and places in Irish science and technology, Edited by Charles Mollan, William Davis and Brendan Finucane, Dublin 1990. Northern Ireland scientists and inventors, by Wilbert Garvin and Des O'Rawe, Belfast 1993. The Guinness book of Irish facts and feats, by Ciaran Deane, Middlesex, 1994. The Fontana history of chemistry, by William H. Brock, London 1992. Kathleen Lansdale, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 21, 1975. The life of Captain Robert Halpin, by Jim Rees, Arklow 1992. Submarine telegraphy, the grand Victorian technology, by B.S. POOR OLD ALCHEMIST : 'That's all very well , but here's fellows cannot split!"
Flynn, London 1973. Irish national inventory of historic scientific instruments, by Charles Mollan, Dublin 1995.
an atom I bet you
(The remarkable feat of at last splitting the atom has been achieved by two' young British Physicists, Dr. T. D. Cockroft and Dr. E, T. S. Walton). Political cartoon from the Evening Post, London, 2 May 1932
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Ernest Walton's Nobel Prize Medal, 1951
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Introduction The importance of science and technology to the economic prosperity of Ireland has never been greater, and is growing all the time. Our education system produces skilled diploma, certificate and degree holders who are in great demand by the very many multinational companies which have decided to locate here. More and more Irish people are forming their own companies in Ireland, exporting state-of-the-art products throughout the world. Others achieve great success abroad - and more of them are coming back. Third level colleges are setting up centres of excellence in both pure and applied research, and this activity adds life and vigour to the training of future entrepreneurs.
In January 1996, as we rapidly head for a new Millennium, we celebrate our evident Irish cultural ability as innovators by highlighting some achievements of Irish men and women of the past who have clearly demonstrated this ability, and we look also at some modern developments of their work. The exhibition draws attention to just a few of our many historic innovators. It is largely confined to astronomy, physics and chemistry, and there are many more Irish achievers in these subjects who are not mentioned. Our innovative ability has not been confined to these disciplines. Impressive exhibitions could be mounted in other areas, such as biology, geology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. But that is for another day.
A vital ingredient for success in all these areas is innovative ability. New ideas are required all the time to keep ahead of the field, to come up with new concepts and new products, and to develop them still further to meet identified needs, or to identify new requirements. How many people would reckon that this necessary innovative spirit is a traditional part of Irish culture? The Exhibition - The Irish Innovator - has been set up to demonstrate that the Irish do indeed have a long, distinguished, and continuing tradition of innovation in science and technology. Š Charles Mollan Samton Limited ISBN 1 898 706 06 9
Our young exhibitors at the Aer Lingus Exhibition demonstrate that this ability still flourishes, as does the success of the winners of the prizes in beating older competitors from other countries at international events.
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Featured Irish Innovators
Exhibition Credits Aer Lingus is grateful to: Forfas - for sponsorship and advice, without which the Exhibition
Telecom Eireann - for allowing use of the Marconi Exhibition, which was previously displayed at the Comms 95 Exhibition, and for supplying the videoconferencing exhibit.
could not have been mounted. Dr Charles Mollan, Samton Limited - for the concept and content
Patrick McCormack and Chris Smith - for designing and building the interactive exhibits.
of the Exhibition. Trinity College Dublin - for allowing the use of display units and exhibits from the Exhibition The Mind and The Hand, which was held in the Colonnades Gallery from February to December 1995; and for all the assistance given with the building and presenta-
Janette Mooney, Fiona Murphy, Eileen Weafer and Karin Whooley, Dublin Institute of Technology - for their interactive multimedia chemistry exhibit. The Meteorological Service - for the Automatic Weather Station.
tion of the interactive displays. Building Design Partnership and Display Contracts International for designing and building the exhibition. Armagh County Museum, Armagh Observatory, Blackrock College, The Earl and Countess of Rosse, Irish Distillers' Group Ltd, The National Museum, The Queen's University of Belfast, The Royal Society, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and University College Galway - for permission to display artefacts and illustrations.
Crystallography Centre, University College Galway - for the x-ray crystallography exhibit. Apple Computers Limited - for the Apple Quicktake 150 24 bit colour digital camera assembly. Massey Ferguson of Coventry - for the video ABC of the Ferguson System. Dunsink Observatory - for the telescopes and solar system illus-
Page eorge Berkeley (1685-1753)
John Desmond Bernal (1901-1971) Robert Boyle (1627-1691) Lucien Bull (1876-1972) Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817)
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uglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) Mary, Countess of Rosse (1813-1 8 85) William Molyneux (1656-1698) Hugh O'Toole (1855-1923)
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Thomas Romney Robinson (1793-1882)
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Harry Ferguson (1844-1960)
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Charles Parsons (1854-1908)
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George Francis FitzGerald (1851-1901)
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Laurence Parsons (1840-1931)
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Howard Grubb (1844-1931)
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William Parsons, Third Earl of Rosse (1800-1867)
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Thomas Grubb (18oo-1878)
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George Johnstone Stoney (1826-1911)
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Robert Halpin (1836-1894)
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William Thomson , Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
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William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865)
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Ernest Walton (1903-1995)
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John Jellett (1817-1888)
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John Joly (1857-1933)
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Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971)
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tration.
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Robert Boyle (1627-1691) Sometimes known as "The son of the Earl of Cork and the father of Chemistry", Robert Boyle was born in Lismore, Co. Waterford, the youngest of fourteen children of Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork, and his second wife, Katherine Fenton. Richard had moved to Ireland in 1588, and had a very distinguished career, becoming a lord justice and lord high treasurer of Ireland. Robert has a particularly important place in the history of science because of his influence in establishing the experimental method, on which all modern science is based. Contemporary thinkers, like Huygens and Leibniz, were inclined to doubt the value of demonstrating by experiment what they (and all "rational" thinkers) knew to be true by logical reasoning alone. He was born into a world in which the theories of Aristotle and the beliefs of alchemy were paramount. When he died, experimental science was firmly established, and the credit is largely his. He was a founder of the Royal Society in 1661, the same year in which he published his book The Sceptical Chymist.
Robert Boyle and his air pump Illustrations courtesy of The Royal Society
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In the latter he questioned the early belief that materials were made up of four elements - earth, air, fire and water. Anticipating our modern concepts, he wrote: "I now mean by elements ...certain primitive and simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies, which not being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the ingredients of which all those called perfectly mixed bodies are immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately resolved". He also introduced many analytical tests, including the use of vegetable dyes as acid-base indicators, and flame tests to detect metals.
While much of his work was in chemistry, which he came to study following an interest in medicine (in turn possibly a consequence of his poor state of heath), one of his most memorable legacies to science was his use of the air pump, which he developed, and which allowed him to investigate the nature and properties of the vacuum. For example, he demonstrated that sound could not be heard in a vacuum, that a feather fell faster in a vacuum than in air, that a candle was extinguished, and that an unfortunate cat died. To-day's students are reminded of Robert's work when they learn "Boyle's Law", which states that, at constant temperature, the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to the pressure applied to it (V x p = constant).
William Molyneux (1656-1698) William Molyneux was born in Dublin and studied in Ireland and England before returning to Dublin in 1678, where he developed his interests in science and philosophy.
tion and dependence that Ireland hath and ought to have upon England as united and annexed to the imperial crown of the
In 1683, using a microscope and a newt, he was the first to demonstrate the circulation of the blood - "as plainly as water running in a river and more rapidly than any common stream".
Molyneux is also remembered for proposing a' jocose problem" to philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). A man, who was born blind, has learned to distinguish by touch a globe from a cube. Suppose that he suddenly regains his sight, and is shown a globe and a cube. Could he tell which was which without touching them? Molyneux' view was that he couldn't, and Locke agreed, as did the famous Trinity philosopher and scientist, George Berkeley (1685-1753), born in Kilkenny, and author ofA new theory of vision (1709). Since no entirely satisfactory experiment has been carried out, The problem continues to exercise the minds of philosophers three hundred years later.
In 1685, he designed a sundial-mounted telescope, of which he published an account Sciothericum telescopicum or, a new contrivance of adapting a telescope to an horizontal dial. His popular Dioptrica nova, of 1692, was the first treatise on optics to be published in English. In the 169os, he became involved in politics and economic matters, and published the work for which he is best remembered The case of Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated. This denied the claims of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland, and of the English House of Lords to be the final Court of Appeal in Irish cases. One of the incentives for his book was a bill of 1697, introduced in the English House of Commons, for a ban on the export to foreign and colonial markets of Irish woollen cloth, which was regarded as a dangerous competitor of the English trade. "England most certainty will never let us thrive by the woollen trade; this is their darling mistress and they are jealous of any rival." The Act was duly passed, with the House of Commons resolving that Molyneux' book was "of dangerous consequence to the crown and people of England by denying the authority of the king and parliament of England to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland, and the subordina8
Thomas Romney Robinson (1793-1882)
realm".
Thomas Romney Robinson was born in Dublin, the first son of a fashionable portrait painter, who had studied under George Romney (hence his second name). The family moved to Belfast in 1801, and Thomas attended Belfast Academy, where he gained a reputation as an infant prodigy. He entered Trinity College Dublin in 18o6 at the tender age of twelve, and had a distinguished academic career there, ending up as deputy to the Professor of Natural Philosophy (Physics). He then became Director of Armagh Observatory, a post he held for nearly sixty years, from 1823-1882. The "Robinson Anemometer" Robinson is best remembered for the invention, in 1850, of the familiar four-cup anemometer, for measuring wind speed. The original idea was suggested to him many years earlier by Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817), father of novelist Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849). Robinson was a close friend for many years of the Edgeworth family, and his second wife, whom he married in 1843, was Lucy Edgeworth, half-sister of Maria. The cups on the anemometer rotate at about one third of the velocity of the wind. The number of rotations over a period of time are recorded, and the average wind speed over this period is thus easily calculated. Some more-modern Robinson anemometers use three cups instead of four, and they are still in common use to-day. They are also used for drawing attention to traffic hazard warnings when located on top of conical road bollards.
Model of four-cup Robinson anemometer, c1875 - Physics Department TCD
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Thomas and Howard Grubb
William Rowan Hamilton
(1805 - 1 8 65)
(1800-1878 & 1844-1931) In 1863, the American National Academy of Sciences appointed an Irishman, Dublin-born William Rowan Hamilton, its first Foreign Associate: he was considered by them to be the greatest of living scientists.
In 1833-34, Thomas Romney Robinson commissioned Thomas Grubb to build a reflecting telescope with a fifteen inch mirror for Armagh Observatory. This was one of the first two major commissions from the Dublin firm which became leading international suppliers of telescopes and astronomical equipment, and the greatest scientific instrument makers which Ireland has produced. The telescope incorporated novel design features of great significance to the future development of the telescope. The other early commission was a 13-inch refracting telescope mounting for Markree Castle in Co. Sligo.
Hamilton was born on the stroke of midnight on 3-4 August 1805. He is still widely regarded as Ireland's greatest mathematician, although the country has produced many other eminent mathematicians. He was an infant prodigy, and it was claimed that he could read Greek, Latin and Hebrew at the age of four. In Trinity College Dublin, he was unbeaten in every examination in both classics and science. Even before he grad-uated, he had been appointed, in 1827, Andrews Professor of Astronomy and Royal Astronomer of Ireland, and he lived at Dunsink Observatory from then until his death. He made important contributions to theoretical physics, particularly optics, and to mathematics. Hamilton quaternions (sets of vectors involving imaginary numbers), are regularly used in to-day's computer graphics and in the guidance systems of space craft; and Hamilton graphs are in common use in modern discrete mathematics.
Thomas's son, Howard, joined his father's firm in 1865, and they built a 48 inch reflecting telescope for Melbourne in 1869, a 27 inch refracting telescope for Vienna in 1880, and many other telescopes for such places as Madrid, Mecca, Mississippi, and Madras. Reflecting telescopes use mirrors as their major optical components, and refracting telescopes use lenses. Unusually for instrument makers, both Thomas and Howard (neither of whom were graduates) were elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society (in 1864 and 1883 respectively) and Howard was knighted in 1887. Thomas was born in Kilkenny and Howard in Dublin. Grubb telescopes can be seen to-day at Armagh Observatory, Dunsink Observatory (Castleknock, Dublin), and in the Crawford Observatory on the Campus of University College Cork. All of these are refracting telescopes.
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As well as studying mathematics, he also wrote poetry, and was a friend of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. However, neither his poetry nor his practical astronomy were up to the standard of his mathematics, and Wordsworth is credited with encouraging him to stick with mathematics instead of following his poetic ambitions! In some ways, he had a sad life for, in 1825, he fell in love with Catherine Disney, a sister of one of his college friends, but she turned him down, and the pain of this disappointment stayed with him throughout his life. In 1833, he married Helen Bayly, and they had three children; but Helen suffered from continued ill health. William was knighted in 1835, the year in which the British Association for the Advancement of Science (founded in 1831) first held its annual meeting in Dublin.
JI A habitual scribbler, he is reputed to have carried out some of his calculations on the shell of his breakfast egg and, in 1843, he inscribed one of his most famous equations on Brougham Bridge, on the Royal Canal, as he walked to a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy, of which he was President. The Crawford Observatory at UCC, built and equipped by Howard Grubb
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The Parsons Family of Birr Castle The Parsons family has lived at Birr Castle since 162o, and has an amazing record of achievement in science and engineering.
careering around the slower ships of the fleet. The sales pitch worked, and Parsons' turbines were commissioned for destroyers like the Viper, battleships like the Dreadnought, and Cunard
William Parsons (1800-1867), the Third Earl of Rosse, built at Birr, in the early 1840s, what was to be the largest telescope in the world for over seventy years. It has been nicknamed the Leviathan of Parsonstown. Using local labour, he cast and polished a massive metal mirror of diameter six feet, and housed it in a large telescope tube between impressive stone walls. With it he carried out pioneering astronomical studies, discovering in the process the spiral nature of some nebulae. The telescope is now in the process of restoration as the centrepiece of the
liners Lusitania and Mauretania.
Historic Science Centre being set up at Birr. Laurence Parsons (1840-1908), the Fourth Earl, carried on the astronomical work of his father. He is best known scientifically for his studies on the heat radiated by the moon. Sir Charles Parsons (1854-1931), youngest son of the Third Earl, invented the steam turbine engine, which revolutionised both marine transport and the generation of electricity.
The Leviathan of Parsonstown - photograph by Mary, Countess of Rosse, of the Third Earl's 72-inch mirror reflecting telescope (reproduced by David Davison)
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An Audacious Sales Pitch - Although Charles Parsons knew that his marine turbine engine was superior to engines then used in ships, he had trouble convincing a conservative British Admiralty. So, uninvited, he joined the Naval Review for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee at Spithead in 1897 with his experimental vessel the Turbinia. Powered by his turbine, the vessel - which could achieve 34 knots - was so much faster than anything else on the water that he could not be caught as he caused a sensation by
Mary, Countess of Rosse (1813-1885) In 1836, Lord Oxmantown, later to be the Third Earl, married Mary Field (1813-1885), a Yorkshire woman, and they had four (surviving) sons, including Laurence and Charles. Mary, Countess of Rosse (as she became in 1841), was a remarkable woman who added greatly to the estate at Birr. Among other things she was a pioneer photographer and, with her great artistic talent, left behind many fine photographs, including portraits of family members and of the large telescopes.