Beschreibung
(71 -134) pages; extracted from the Memoires de l'Institut des Sciences, Lettres et Arts; French text. Set out in six 'memoires'; with a folding plate; Rumford's researches regarding experiments in heat. Sir Benjamin, Count Rumford in the nobility of the Holy Roman empire, Thompson (1753 - 1814) American-born & educated British royalist, natural philosopher and philanthropist who left during the Revolution and who ".Once in Britain Thompson presented himself as an expert on America rather than as a refugee and became the main contact between American loyalists in England and the British government.Like Davy's, Faraday's, and Tyndall's, Rumford's is a story of the social mobility which science could bring: the farm boy and shop assistant became the Massachusetts Yankee at the courts of Europe. He spoke well German, French, Spanish, and Italian; he played billiards, against himself, and enjoyed chess; he was a good draughtsman; indifferent to literature, sculpture, and painting he had a great taste for landscape gardening. His daughter, Countess Rumford, returned to America and died in 1852. In his eloge at the Institut de France on 9 January 1815 Georges Cuvier emphasized the revolutions, warfare, and conflicting loyalties which had dominated Rumford's life, and was mildly embarrassed by his pursuit of honours and wealth. He stressed the value of Rumford's practical inventions, with their scientific basis. Later, to Tyndall lecturing at the Royal Institution in 1883, Rumford's researches on the nature of heat put him firmly in the tradition leading to James Joule, conservation of energy, and modern thermodynamics.Brown (author of the biography of Rumford) places his researches on heat in their context, where the implications Tyndall saw were not perceived by Rumford or his contemporaries, and where the diversity and utility of his discoveries, based on research rather than empiricism, were most impressive. He has an important place in the origins of applied science." (David Knight in the ODNB) Title page with the small name-stamp of collector George R. Brush; M.D. in the U.S. Navy; a surgeon & medical inspector, from 1861-1894. Approx. 8 1/2" x 11" size; bound in the original plain brown paper wrappers, with the handwritten name 'Rumford.' A little wear and dustiness to the cover, some spotting and foxing within; in very good condition. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 27116
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