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Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Category Archives: Science & Technology


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Death of Robert Mallet, the Father of Seismology

robert-mallet

Robert Mallet, geophysicist, civil engineer, and inventor who distinguishes himself in research on earthquakes and is sometimes called the Father of Seismology, dies on November 5, 1881.

Mallet is born in Dublin on June 3, 1810, the son of factory owner John Mallet. He is educated at Trinity College, Dublin, entering it at the age of 16 and graduating in science and mathematics in 1830 at the age of 20.

Following his graduation, he joins his father’s iron foundry business and helps build the firm into one of the most important engineering works in Ireland, supplying ironwork for railway companies, the Fastnet Rock lighthouse, and a swing bridge over the River Shannon at Athlone. He also helps manufacture the characteristic iron railings that surround Trinity College, and which bear his family name at the base.

Mallet is elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 1832 at the early age of 22. He also enrolls in the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1835 which helps finance much of his research in seismology.

In 1838 he becomes a life member of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland and serves as its President from 1846–1848. From 1848–1849 he constructs the Fastnet Rock lighthouse, southwest of Cape Clear.

On February 9, 1846, he presents to the Royal Irish Academy his paper On the Dynamics of Earthquakes, which is considered to be one of the foundations of modern seismology. He is also credited with coining the word “seismology” and other related words which he uses in his research. He also coins the term epicentre.

From 1852 to 1858, he is engaged in the preparation of his work, The Earthquake Catalogue of the British Association (1858) and carries out blasting experiments to determine the speed of seismic propagation in sand and solid rock.

On December 16, 1857, the area around Padula, Italy is devastated by the Great Neapolitan earthquake which causes 11,000 deaths. At the time it is the third largest known earthquake in the world and has been estimated to have been of magnitude 6.9 on the Richter Scale. Mallet, with letters of support from Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, petitions the Royal Society of London and receives a grant of £150 to go to Padula and record at first hand the devastation. The resulting report is presented to the Royal Society as the Report on the Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857. It is a major scientific work and makes great use of the then new research tool of photography to record the devastation caused by the earthquake. In 1862, he publishes the Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857: The First Principles of Observational Seismology in two volumes. He brings forward evidence to show that the depth below the Earth’s surface, from where the impulse of the Neapolitan earthquake originated, is about 8–9 geographical miles.

One of Mallet’s papers is Volcanic Energy: An Attempt to develop its True Origin and Cosmical Relations, in which he seeks to show that volcanic heat may be attributed to the effects of crushing, contortion, and other disturbances in the crust of the earth. The disturbances leading to the formation of lines of fracture, more or less vertical, down which water would find its way, and if the temperature generated be sufficient volcanic eruptions of steam or lava would follow.

Mallet is elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1854, and in 1861 moves to London, where he becomes a consulting engineer and edits The Practical Mechanic’s Journal. He is awarded the Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1859, followed by the Cunningham Medal of the Royal Irish Academy for his research into the theory of earthquakes in 1862, and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1877, the Geological Society’s highest award.

Blind for the last seven years of his life, Robert Mallet dies at Stockwell, London, on November 5, 1881, and is buried at West Norwood Cemetery.


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Birth of Patrick d’Arcy, Scientist & Soldier

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Patrick d’Arcy, scientist and soldier in the Irish Brigade of France, is born in Kitulla, County Galway, on September 27, 1725.

The d’Arcy family, who are Catholics, suffer under the Penal Laws. In 1739 d’Arcy is sent to Paris for his education. He is tutored in mathematics by Jean-Baptiste Clairaut, and becomes a friend of Jean-Baptiste’s son, Alexis-Claude Clairaut, who is a brilliant young mathematician. d’Arcy makes original contributions to dynamics. He is best known for his part in the discovery of the principle of angular momentum, in a form which is known as “the principle of areas,” which he announces in 1746.

Perhaps seeking more adventure than an academic life can provide, d’Arcy enlists in the French army. He fights in Germany in the regiment of Condé and serves as an aide-de-camp to Marshal Saxe at the Battle of Fontenoy. He obtains the title of “Count” in the French nobility and is a generous patron of Irish refugees in France. He sails for Scotland in 1745, attempting to fight in “Bonnie” Prince Charlie‘s rising, but his ship is captured, and he is taken prisoner.

After his release, d’Arcy returns to France where he continues both his scientific and military careers. In addition to his contributions to dynamics, he performs research on artillery and electricity. One of his experiments on visual perception, reported in 1765, is often referenced. It involves a rotating disk on which a burning coal ember is placed. When the disk is spun at an angular velocity exceeding seven revolutions per second, a full circle of light is perceived. This and other experiments make d’Arcy the first person to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image, although Joseph Plateau greatly elaborates on this initial finding.

Patrick d’Arcy is elected to the Academie Royale des Sciences in 1749. He died from cholera in Paris on October 18, 1779.


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Birth of Richard John Griffith, Author of Griffith’s Valuation

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Richard John Griffith, Irish geologist, mining engineer, and chairman of the Board of Works of Ireland, is born in Hume Street, Dublin, on September 20, 1784. He completed the first complete geological map of Ireland and is author of the valuation of Ireland, known ever since as Griffith’s Valuation.

Griffith goes to school in Portarlington and later, while attending school in Rathangan, his school is attacked by the rebels during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. He also studies in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 1799 he obtains a commission in the Royal Irish Artillery, but a year later, when the corps is incorporated with that of England, he retires, and devotes his attention to civil engineering and mining. He studies chemistry, mineralogy, and mining for two years in London under William Nicholson and afterwards examines the mining districts in various parts of England, Wales, and Scotland.

While in Cornwall he discovers ores of nickel and cobalt in material that has been rejected as worthless. He completes his studies under Robert Jameson and others at Edinburgh, is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1807, a member of the newly established Geological Society of London in 1808, and in the same year he returns to Ireland.

In 1809, he is appointed by the commissioners to inquire into the nature and extent of the bogs in Ireland and the means of improving them. In 1812 he is elected Professor of Geology and Mining Engineer to the Royal Dublin Society. Shortly afterwards he expresses his intention of preparing a geological map of Ireland. During subsequent years he makes many surveys and issues many reports on mineral districts in Ireland. These form the foundation of his first geological map of the country in 1815. He also succeeds Dr. Richard Kirwan as government inspector of mines in Ireland. In 1822 Griffith becomes engineer of public works in Cork, Kerry, and Limerick, and is occupied until 1830 in repairing old roads and in laying out many miles of new roads in some of the most inaccessible parts of the country.

Meanwhile, in 1825, he is appointed by the government to carry out a boundary survey of Ireland. He is to mark the boundaries of every county, barony, civil parish, and townland in preparation for the first Ordnance Survey. He is also called upon to assist in the preparation of a parliamentary Bill to provide for the general valuation of Ireland, which passes in 1826. Griffith is appointed Commissioner of Valuation in 1827 but does not start work until 1830 when the new 6″ maps become available from the Ordnance survey and which he is required to use as provided for by statute. He continues to work on this until 1868. On Griffith’s valuation the various local and public assessments are made.

His extensive investigations furnish him with ample material for improving his geological map and the second edition is published in 1835. A third edition on a larger scale (1 in. to 4 m.) is issued under the Board of Ordnance in 1839 and it is further revised in 1855. For this great work and his other services to science Griffith is awarded the Wollaston Medal by the Geological Society in 1854. In 1850 he is made chairman of the Irish Board of Works and in 1858 he is created a baronet.

Griffith dies at the age of 95 at his residence in Dublin on September 22, 1878. At the time of his death, he is the oldest surviving fellow of the Geological Society of London and is the last survivor of the long-since disbanded Royal Irish Regiment of Artillery. He is buried alongside his wife, Maria Jane, in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Harold’s Cross, Dublin.


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Birth of Mathematician George Gabriel Stokes

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Sir George Gabriel Stokes, mathematician, physicist, politician, and theologian, is born into an evangelical Protestant family in Skreen, County Sligo, on August 13, 1819. After attending schools in Skreen, Dublin, and Bristol, he matriculates in 1837 at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

In 1849, Stokes is appointed to the Lucasian professorship of mathematics at Cambridge, a position he holds until his death in 1903. In physics, Stokes makes seminal contributions to fluid dynamics, including the Navier–Stokes equations, and to physical optics. In mathematics he formulates the first version of what is now known as Stokes’ theorem and contributes to the theory of asymptotic expansions.

On June 1, 1899, the jubilee of his appointment is celebrated in a ceremony which is attended by numerous delegates from European and American universities. A commemorative gold medal is presented to Stokes by the chancellor of the university, and marble busts of Stokes by Hamo Thornycroft are formally offered to Pembroke College and to the university by Lord Kelvin.

Stokes, who is made a baronet in 1889, further serves his university by representing it in parliament from 1887 to 1892 as one of the two members for the Cambridge University constituency. During a portion of this period (1885–1890) he also serves as president of the Royal Society, of which he has been one of the secretaries since 1854. Since he is also Lucasian Professor at this time, Stokes is the first person to hold all three positions simultaneously.

Stokes dies on Feb. 1, 1903, at his cottage in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. He is buried in the Mill Road Cemetery.


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Birth of “Jem” Finer, Founding Member of The Pogues

jem-finerJeremy Max “Jem” Finer, English musician, artist, composer, and one of the founding members of The Pogues, is born in Stoke-on-Trent, England on July 20, 1955.

After college at Keele University, Finer travels around Europe and spends some time working on a barge in France. He settles in London and becomes the bass player in a group called The Petals and lives in 32 Burton Street, a house which he sometimes shares with Spider Stacey and Shane MacGowan. Together with James Fearnley they found The Pogues. Primarily a banjoist, he also plays other instruments, including mandola, saxophone, hurdy-gurdy, and the guitar. Apart from Shane MacGowan, Finer is the most prolific composer for the band.

Finer appears on all the band’s albums until their breakup in 1996. He continues working as a musician and composer after leaving The Pogues.

On January 1, 2000, the Finer-composed Longplayer piece of music is started and is designed to last 1,000 years without ever repeating itself. It currently exists in both computer-generated and live versions. Longplayer represents a convergence of many of his concerns, particularly those relating to systems, long-durational processes, and extremes of scale in both time and space.

Finer serves as “Artist in Residence” at the Astrophysics Sub-department of the University of Oxford between October 2003 and June 2005. Finer and Hamburg-based swamp pop legend DM Bob begin recording and performing together in 2005, releasing their album Bum Steer in August of that year and co-producing the debut album by experimental pop band Marseille Figs. In July 2005, Finer wins the PRS Foundation New Music Award on the basis of his proposal to build a device that will automatically “compose” a song of indeterminate length by harnessing the creative force of the weather.

In March 2012, Mobile Sinfonia, a global composition for ringtones is launched, developed during a year Finer spends as a non-resident artist at the University of Bath. This piece concerns mutual invasion of soundscape via ringtones.

Finer is currently working on a number of new projects continuing his interest in long-term sustainability and the reconfiguring of older technologies, including Spiegelei, a spherical camera obscura featuring Finer’s innovative 360-degree projection system and the Supercomputer in Cambridge, a 5-bit mechanical sculpture which will compute minimal musical scores.


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Birth of Scientific Writer Dionysius Lardner in Dublin

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Dionysius Lardner, scientific writer who popularised science and technology and edited the 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopædia, is born in Dublin on April 3, 1793.

Lardner’s father was a solicitor in Dublin, who wishes his son to follow the same calling. After some years of uncongenial desk work, Lardner enters Trinity College, Dublin in 1812, obtains a B.A. in 1817 and an M.A. in 1819, winning many prizes. While in Dublin, Lardner begins to write and lecture on scientific and mathematical matters, and to contribute articles for publication by the Irish Academy.

In 1828, Lardner is elected professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at University College, London, a position he holds until he resigns his professorship in 1831. He is the author of numerous mathematical and physical treatises on such subjects as algebraic geometry, differential and integral calculus, and the steam engine. He also writes handbooks on various departments of natural philosophy, but it is as the editor of Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopædia that he is best remembered.

The Cabinet Cyclopædia eventually comprises 133 volumes with many of the ablest savants of the day contributing to it, including Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Moore, Connop Thirlwall, and Robert Southey. Lardner himself is the author of the treatises on arithmetic, geometry, heat, hydrostatics and pneumatics, mechanics, and electricity. The Cabinet Library and the Museum of Science and Art are his other chief undertakings.

In 1840, Lardner’s career receives a major setback as a result of his involvement with Mary Spicer Heaviside, the wife of Captain Richard Heaviside, of the Dragoon Guards. Lardner runs off to Paris with Mrs. Heaviside and is pursued by her husband. When he catches up with them, Heaviside subjects Lardner to a flogging but is unable to persuade his wife to return with him. Later that year Heaviside successfully sues Lardner for “criminal conversation” (adultery) and receives a judgment of £8,000. The Heavisides are divorced in 1845 and Lardner marries Mary Heaviside in 1846. The scandal effectively ends his career in England, so Lardner and his wife remained in Paris until shortly before his death in 1859. He is able to maintain his career by lecturing in the United States between 1841 and 1844, which proves financially rewarding.

Lardner dies in Naples, Italy, on April 29, 1859, and is buried in the Cimitero degli Inglesi there.