David Brewster

David Brewster

Mathematics,Natural History

Scottish physicist, mathematician, astronomer, writer, historian of science and inventor of the kaleidoscope, David Brewster became a significant figure in Scottish higher education through becoming the principal of the University of St Andrews, and later the principal of the University of Edinburgh. Although he had qualified to become a minister of the Church of Scotland after obtaining a divinity degree from the University of Edinburgh, he chose instead to pursue his scientific passions. Dubbed the 'Father of modern experimental optics' by William Whewell, he was mostly concerned with the study of the polarization of light and the discovery of 'Brewster's angle'. He achieved success in improving the stereoscope and was instrumental in persuading the British to adopt the Fresnel lens for use in lighthouses. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1815, he also helped to form the British Association for the Advancement of Science and was knighted for his contribution to science in 1831. He published numerous notable works, including two biographies of Sir Isaac Newton, alongside being a regular contributor to the Edinburgh Magazine and editor for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia from 1807. As a student, one young man from his native Roxburghshire described him as 'the only virtuous character he had met among young men'. He combined his loves of sciences and of religion, calling the former integral to the safeguarding of the latter, and said that: 'Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon'.

greatthinkers,history,photography

Francesco Alessandrini Lupia

Organisation

156

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brewster

TEXT

Q168468

1868