William Ritchie (1790?–1837) was a Scottish
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 cau ...
. He was noted as an ingenious experimentalist.
Life
Born about 1790, he was educated for the
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland.
The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Reformation of 1560, when it split from the Catholic Church ...
, and was licensed to preach; but he abandoning the church for the teaching profession. He became rector of the
Royal Academy of Tain, in
Ross-shire
Ross-shire (; gd, Siorrachd Rois) is a historic county in the Scottish Highlands. The county borders Sutherland to the north and Inverness-shire to the south, as well as having a complex border with Cromartyshire – a county consisting ...
. After saving a little money, he provided a substitute to perform his duties, and went to Paris. There he attended the lectures of
Louis Jacques Thénard,
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (, , ; 6 December 1778 – 9 May 1850) was a French chemist and physicist. He is known mostly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen (with Alexander von Humboldt), for two laws ...
, and
Jean-Baptiste Biot
Jean-Baptiste Biot (; ; 21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, made an early ba ...
. He soon acquired skill in devising and performing experiments in
natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.
From the ancien ...
.
Ritchie's publications led to his appointment to the professorship of natural philosophy at the
Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
, where he delivered a course of probationary lectures in 1829. In 1832 he was appointed professor of natural philosophy in
London University
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degre ...
.
[
Ritchie was subsequently engaged on experiments on the manufacture of ]glass
Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...
for optical purposes, and a commission was appointed by the government to inquire into his results. A telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obse ...
of eight inches aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.
An ...
was constructed by John Dollond
John Dollond FRS (10 June O.S. (21 June N.S.) 170630 November 1761) was an English optician, known for his successful optics business and his patenting and commercialization of achromatic doublets.
Biography
Dollond was the son of a Hugue ...
from Ritchie's glass, at the recommendation of the commission, but its performance was not very satisfactory.[
Ritchie died on 15 September 1837 of a fever caught in Scotland.][
]
Works
He became known to Sir John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...
, and through him he communicated to the Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
papers ''On a New Photometer'', ''On a New Form of the Differential Thermometer'', and ''On the Permeability of Transparent Screens of Extreme Tenuity by Radiant Heat''. Shortly afterwards he published two small treatises on geometry (1833; 3rd edit. 1853) and the differential and integral calculus (1836; 2nd edit. 1847). He communicated to the Royal Society—of which he was elected a fellow—papers ''On the Elasticity of Threads of Glass and the Application of this Property to Torsion Balances'', and also experimental researches on the electric and chemical theories of galvanism
Galvanism is a term invented by the late 18th-century physicist and chemist Alessandro Volta to refer to the generation of electric current by chemical action. The term also came to refer to the discoveries of its namesake, Luigi Galvani, specif ...
, on electromagnetism
In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions o ...
, and voltaic electricity.[
His papers contributed to the '']Philosophical Magazine
The ''Philosophical Magazine'' is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. It was established by Alexander Tilloch in 1798;John Burnett"Tilloch, Alexander (1759–1825)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Univer ...
'' are in vols. i.–xii.[
]
See also
*Electrical telegraph
Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...
* Needle telegraph
*Rotor (electric)
The rotor is a moving component of an electromagnetic system in the electric motor, electric generator, or alternator. Its rotation is due to the interaction between the windings and magnetic fields which produces a torque around the rotor' ...
References
;Attribution
External links
* for a brief biography on Ritchie.
Scottish physicists
1790 births
1837 deaths
Fellows of the Royal Society
{{physicist-stub