Claude Auguste Lamy (; 15 June 1820 – 20 March 1878) was a French chemist who discovered the element

thallium Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol Tl and atomic number 81. It is a gray post-transition metal that is not found free in nature. When isolated, thallium resembles tin, but discolors when exposed to air. Chemists William Crookes an ...

independently from

William Crookes Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing t ...

in 1862.

Life

Lamy was born in the

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

of Ney in the department of Jura,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

in 1820. He studied at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. After he graduated from University in 1842 he became a teacher at

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

then at Limoges and again in Lille. In 1851 he received his Ph.D. In 1854 he became professor at the faculty of sciences of Lille (

Université Lille Nord de France The Community of Universities and Institutions (COMUE) Lille Nord de France (formerly Université Lille Nord de France) was a French Groups of Universities and Institutions ( COMUE) spread over multiple campuses and centered in Lille (North - Hauts ...

) and taught at École des arts industriels et des mines (

École centrale de Lille Located in the campus of Science and Technology (Cité Scientifique) of the University of Lille in Villeneuve-d'Ascq ( European Metropolis of Lille - Hauts-de-France); École Centrale de Lille is a renowned graduate engineering school, with ro ...

). In 1866 he changed to the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (École centrale de Paris). Lamy died in 1878.

References

1820 births 1878 deaths Discoverers of chemical elements Lille University of Science and Technology faculty 19th-century French physicists 19th-century French chemists Thallium {{france-chemist-stub