![Memorial to William Nicol, Warriston Cemetery](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Memorial_to_William_Nicol%2C_Warriston_Cemetery.JPG)
William Nicol
FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
FCS (1768?2 September 1851) was a Scottish
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...
and
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
who invented the
Nicol prism
A Nicol prism is a type of polarizer, an optical device made from calcite crystal used to produce and analyse plane polarized light. It is made in such a way that it eliminates one of the rays by total internal reflection, i.e. the ordinary ray ...
, the first device for obtaining
plane-polarized light
Polarization (also polarisation) is a property applying to transverse waves that specifies the geometrical orientation of the oscillations. In a transverse wave, the direction of the oscillation is perpendicular to the direction of motion of the ...
, in 1828.
Early life
Nicol was born in
Humbie
Humbie is a hamlet and rural parish in East Lothian, Scotland lying in south-east of the county, approximately south-west of Haddington and south-east of Edinburgh. Humbie as it is known today was formed as the result of the union between Kei ...
(
East Lothian
East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921.
In 1975, the histo ...
), the son of Walter Nicol and Marion Fowler.
According to the parish register, he was baptised on 18 April 1770. Some sources give his date of birth as 1768;
other ones (including his gravestone) give 1766. (Note that the gravestone date may be incorrect, as the engraving was done at least 50 years after his death.
)
Lecturer
He started out as aide to his uncle,
Henry Moyes
Henry Moyes (1750 – 1807) was a blind Scottish lecturer on natural philosophy.A. D. Morrison-Low, ‘Moyes, Henry (1749/50–1807)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004
Life
As an itinerant public spea ...
, an itinerant lecturer in
Natural Philosophy
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior throu ...
whose blindness necessitated assistance for his chemistry and optics demonstrations.
[''Joseph Priestley to ]Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James ...
'', 6 Feb 1783, NHM, Dawson Turner MS 3, fol. 17[p122 Albert Edward Musson, Eric Robinson ''Science and technology in the Industrial Revolution,'' Manchester University Press, 1969, ] Nicol, having himself become a popular lecturer on that subject at the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
, settled in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
to live a very retired life. Besides the prism that bears his name, he conducted extensive studies of
fluid inclusions image:Inclumed.gif, 250px, Trapped in a time capsule the same size as the diameter of a human hair, the ore-forming liquid in this inclusion was so hot and contained so much dissolved solids that when it cooled, crystals of halite, sylvite, gypsum, ...
in crystals and the microscopic structure of
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
wood.
He did not publish any of his research findings until 1826.
Nicol prism
Nicol made his prism by bisecting a
parallelepiped
In geometry, a parallelepiped is a three-dimensional figure formed by six parallelograms (the term ''rhomboid'' is also sometimes used with this meaning). By analogy, it relates to a parallelogram just as a cube relates to a square. In Euclidea ...
of
Iceland spar
Iceland spar, formerly called Iceland crystal ( is, silfurberg , ) and also called optical calcite, is a transparent variety of calcite, or crystallized calcium carbonate, originally brought from Iceland, and used in demonstrating the polarizati ...
(a naturally occurring, transparent crystalline form of
calcium carbonate) along its shortest diagonal, then cementing the two halves together with
Canada balsam. Light entering the prism is
refracted
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...
into two rays, one of which emerges as plane-polarized light. Nicol prisms greatly facilitated the study of refraction and
polarization, and were later used to investigate
molecular
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioche ...
structures and optical activity of
organic
Organic may refer to:
* Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity
* Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ
Chemistry
* Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...
compounds.
Microscopic petrography
In 1815, Nicol developed a method of preparing extremely
thin section
In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section (or petrographic thin section) is a thin slice of a rock or mineral sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron mic ...
s of
crystals
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macrosc ...
and
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
s for
microscopical study. He hit upon the plan of cutting sections of fossil wood, so as to reveal its minutest vegetable structures under a microscope. He took a slice from the specimen to be studied, ground it perfectly flat, polished it, and cemented it by means of
Canada balsam to a piece of plate-glass. The exposed surface of the slice was then ground down, until the piece of stone was reduced to a thin transparent to translucent layer adhering to the glass, and the requisite degree of transparency was obtained. His technique of making
thin section
In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section (or petrographic thin section) is a thin slice of a rock or mineral sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron mic ...
s made it possible to view mineral samples by transmitted rather than reflected light and therefore enabled the minerals' internal structures to be seen. Nicol prepared a large number of slices of fossil and recent woods. Many of these were described by
Henry Witham
Henry Thomas Maire Witham FRSE FGS (1779–1844) was a British landowner remembered as an amateur palaeontologist and mineralogist.
He was an early researcher into the internal structure of fossil plants.
Life
He was born Henry Silvertop t ...
in his ''Observations of Fossil Vegetables'' (1831), to which Nicol supplied the first published account of the process.
[
When Nicol died, his instruments and preparations passed to ]Alexander Bryson
Alexander Bryson FRSE FGS FRSSA FSAScot FRPSE (12 October 1816 – 7 December 1866) was a Scottish biologist, geologist and horologist who served as president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts (1860–61) and as president of the Royal P ...
, who made many additions to the collections and made numerous thin slices of minerals and rocks for the purpose of exhibiting the cavities containing fluid, which had been described long before by David Brewster
Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA Scot FSSA MICE (11 December 178110 February 1868) was a British scientist, inventor, author, and academic administrator. In science he is principally remembered for his experimental work in physical optics ...
and Nicol.
Death and legacy
He died at his home, 4 Inverleith Terrace in Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
(now renumbered 12 Inverleith Terrace) on 2 September 1851, and was buried in Warriston Cemetery
Warriston Cemetery is a cemetery in Edinburgh. It lies in Warriston, one of the northern suburbs of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was built by the then newly-formed Edinburgh Cemetery Company, and occupies around of land on a slightly sloping si ...
. His burial site is now marked by a plaque on the east wall, north of the sealed eastern gate.
Dorsum Nicol on the Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
is named after him.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicol, William
1770 births
1851 deaths
19th-century British physicists
19th-century Scottish scientists
People from East Lothian
Academics of the University of Edinburgh
Burials at Warriston Cemetery
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Optical physicists
Scottish inventors
Scottish physicists
Scottish geologists
Fellows of the Chemical Society