Thomas Young’s lectures at the Royal Institution

Abstract

Thomas Young, F. R. S. (1773-1829) achieved renown not only for the original contributions which he made to physics but also, to a lesser extent, for his work in the fields of hieroglyphics, physiology and classics. Yet he was a professional scientist for only two years (1802-1803), when he held the chair of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution. In this paper Young’s progress during these two years will be examined, firstly from a biographical point of view and secondly with respect to the development of his scientific ideas. In both these sections the emphasis will be on the lectures in natural philosophy which he delivered before the Royal Institution in 1802 and repeated in the following year. The second section will be mainly devoted to an analysis of the contents of the notebooks in which he kept the notes for his lectures (1).