Invention Timeline - Humphrey Davy, English Chemist; Discovered Potassium, Sodium, Barium, Calcium and Strontium
b. December 17, 1778 and d. May 30, 1829
English chemist, and the Father of Experimental Philosophy. His discovery of the properties of chlorine and his decomposition of earths by galvanisms wrought great changes in the science of chemistry. The metal he obtained from potash he called potassium; and from soda, sodium. He discovered barium, calcium and strontium in 1807. He invented the miner’s safety lamp. In 1802 he first showed the electric arc or “arch” on a small scale between pieces of carbon.
That lamp’s metallic gauze,
That curtain of protecting wire,
Which Davy delicately draws
Around explosive, dangerous fire.
Be this our trust, that ages (filled with light
More glorious far than those faint beams which shine
In this our feeble twilight) yet to come
Shall see distinctly what we now but hope,—
The world immutable in which alone
Wisdom is found, the light and life of things,
The breath divine, creating power divine,
The One of which the human intellect
Is but a type, as feeble as that image
Of the bright sun seen on the bursting wave—
Bright, but without distinctness; yet in passing
Showing its glorious and eternal source.
—Thought: Sir Humphrey Davy
1816, Jan. 9—Davy’s safety lamp first used in coal pit.
