Page 99 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

Science Stories Davy’s safety
lamp was
designed to
MINING cool the
gases within,
making it
1815 to overheat
less likely
Humphry Davy

invents a

life-saving

lamp

umphry Davy’s (1778–1829) most demonstrations
Hfamous fan was Mary Shelley, who and his powerful
studied his Royal Institution lectures on stage presence,
electricity and chemistry while she was Davy established
writing Frankenstein. Davy’s flamboyant himself as an
presentations attracted so many elegant authoritative in 1801, Davy turned towards more practi-
spectators that the street was made expert who could cal applications by attempting to improve
one-way – London’s first – in order to manipulate the forces of nature to British industry and agriculture. For
cope with the traffic jams of horse-drawn pry out its innermost secrets. In particular, his first major projects, Davy examined
carriages. he used current electricity – only recently leather tanning and fertilisers, provid-
His flair for self-promotion had en- made available – for exploring chemical sub- ing scientific justification for techniques
abled Davy to climb rapidly through the stances. First he decomposed water, showing that had been built up over centuries. In
social strata and move far away from his that it comprises only two elements: oxygen contrast, for his investigations of mining,
origins as the son of a Cornish wood- and hydrogen. After applying the same tech- Davy started with an existing problem and
carver. This one-time apothecary was nique to alkaline solutions, Davy discovered solved it by developing a new device inside
made a baronet to mark his invention two new inflammable metals: sodium and his London laboratory.
of a safety lamp for coal miners – and in potassium. Patriotic Englishmen acclaimed From his Cornish childhood, Davy
1820, he attained the most prestigious Davy as a national hero who had redirected knew that pockets of gas could easily
position in British science by being the course of chemistry. ignite underground, causing many fatal
elected president of the Royal Society. Even so, Davy’s critics never let him forget accidents. Through chemical experi-
Like Victor Frankenstein, Davy epito- that during a two-year stint at the Pneumatic ments, he identified the composition
mised troubled genius. As a teenager, he Institution in Bristol, his research into ni- of the ‘firedamp’ found in mines, and
taught himself the revolutionary ideas trous oxide had concentrated not on the gas’s discovered that it would only explode at
about oxygen and acids that were being anaesthetic properties, but on its potential as high temperatures. For his safety gas lamp,
developed in France, and he resolved to a recreational drug inducing mind-enhanc- Davy introduced two important ways of
become the Isaac Newton of chemistry. ing experiences. But after he came to London preventing this dangerous overheating: he
A prolific poet and fanatical angler, Davy cooled the gases by passing them through
consciously aligned himself with the narrow tubes, and he surrounded the
Romantic writers and artists of his gen- In 1820, he attained flame with a protective sheath of metal
eration. In the early 19th century, there gauze. Davy won huge acclaim for this
was no consensus on how a man of science the most prestigious invention, which saved many lives.
should behave. Should he (definitely not On the other hand, by enabling miners
she!) be a methodical experimenter who position in science to penetrate deeper and more dangerous
systematically accumulates observations – president of seams, his lamp helped to increase their
and tests theories? Or should he aim for employers’ profits. As so often happens,
flashes of instantaneous inspiration when the Royal Society technological progress did not necessarily
BRIDGEMAN watching an apple fall from a tree? represent social improvement.
Through his dramatic experimental
Words: Patricia Fara

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