John Tyndall

John Tyndall


John Tyndall (August 2, 1820 - December 4, 1893) was an outstanding Irish physicist of the 19th century. His initial scientific fame arose in the 1850s thanks to his study of diamagnetism. He later made discoveries in the field of infrared radiation and the physical properties of air, proving the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and what is now known as the greenhouse effect in 1859. Tyndall has also published more than a dozen scientific books that state the state of experimental physics of the 19th century to a wide audience. From 1853 to 1887, he was a professor of physics at the Royal Institute of Great Britain in London. Tyndall was born in Leilinridge, County Carlow, Ireland. His father was a constable of the local police, came from the Gloucestershire emigrants who settled in southeastern Ireland around 1670. Tyndall attended local schools (Ballinabranna Elementary School) in Carlow County until late adolescence and was probably an assistant teacher at the end of his time there. The subjects studied at the school, in particular, included technical drawing and mathematics with some applications of these subjects for geodesy. He was recruited as a draftsman for the Ammunition Survey of Ireland in his late teens in 1839, and joined the Ammunition Survey for Great Britain in 1842. The boom in railroad construction began in the decade of the 1840s, and Tyndall's experience in surveying was valuable and sought after by railway companies. In the period from 1844 to 1847 he was engaged in planning the construction of railways.