Topic summary
James Joule
Extracted from the Wikipedia article James Prescott Joule.
Early years
James Joule was born in 1818, the son of Benjamin Joule, a wealthy brewer, and his wife, Alice Prescott, on New Bailey Street in Salford. Joule was tutored as a young man by the famous scientist John Dalton and was strongly influenced by chemist William Henry and Manchester engineers Peter Ewart and Eaton Hodgkinson. He was fascinated by electricity, and he and his brother experimented by giving electric shocks to each other and to the family's servants.