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IRISH SCIENCE
By Sean Henahan, Access Excellence
Ireland has made some very important and interesting
contributions to all fields of science. Of course there was the
noted anti-herpetologist St. Patrick, but one should not forget
another Irish monk named Fergal. In the eighth century he got
into trouble with the church for declaring that the world was
round. Innovations in boat building technology and navigation led
another monk, Brendan, to sail east and visit North America.
During the Dark Ages preceding the Renaissance, Ireland earned
the name "Land of Saints and Scholars" when dedicated monks
copied and protected Greek, Roman and Arabic manuscripts which
formed the basis for modern learning.
Ireland has also made significant contributions to science
in the more modern era. These include:
-
In physics:
Robert Boyle ( 1627-1691) who was born in Lismore,
County Cork, is famed for his discoveries on the behavior of gases (e.g. Boyle's Law).
In medicine:
Daniel Macbride ( 1726-1728) , a Dublin surgeon had much to contribute on the subject of " fixed air" or carbon dioxide.
In astronomy:
in 1845, the Earl of Rosse from Birr, County Offaly, erected a telescope with a six foot mirror which was until 1915 the largest in the world. The Earl made some important discoveries about the spiral shape of the universe.
In the physical sciences:
In 1869 John Tyndall of County Carlow discovered the effect named after him regarding the scattering of light by colloids. He also contributed to the understanding of radiant heat, meteorology , sterilization of bacteria and the behavior of glaciers.
In telecommunications:
- William Thompson ( 1824-1907) an important researcher in the field of thermodynamics, helped design the first transatlantic cable, which, incidentally, originated in the west of Ireland.
In more modern times:
E.T. S. Walton of Trinity College Dublin shared the Nobel Prize in 1951 for is work on atomic fission.
Nor should we forget Sergeant Fottrell a fictitious policemen from the small village of Dalkey, south of Dublin. He expounded his famous molecular theory in Flann O'Brien's novel THE DALKEY ARCHIVE.
- To wit: " Everything is composed of small mollycules of itself and they are flying around in concentric circles and arcs and segments and innumerable various other routes too numerous to mention collectively, never standing still or resting but spinning away and darting hither and thither and back again, all the time on the go. They are as lively as twenty punky leprechauns doing a jig on the top of a flat tombstone."
In an extrapolation of his theory, Sergeant Fottrell proposed that people who spent a lot of time on bicycles eventually shared some of their atoms with the bike and vice versa until each took on the characteristics of the other.
Transmitted: 95-03-13 22:04:52 EST
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