Cavendish, William

Gr. argos, inactive) Its presence in air was suspected by Cavendish in 1785, discovered by Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay in 1894. 

See Nier, "Emergence of Physics," 279. William Thomson set up the first physics laboratory of its kind in Britain at the University of Glasgow. Alexander Wood, The Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1946) 1. 

Priestley wasn t wealthy like Boyle and Cavendish so he didn t have the leisure to spend as much time on scientific experiments as they did. However, by this time his fame had grown and he soon had a patron. William Petty, the second earl of Shelburne, admired Priestley s scientific work and offered him a post supervising the education of his two sons and collecting material on subjects under discussion in parliament. The salary was to be two and a half times what he was then earning, and Shelburne also provided his new... 

Letter to Thomas Graham, as quoted by William Charles Henry, Memoirs of the Life and Scientific Researches of John Dalton (London Cavendish Society, 1854), 124. 

Dr. Thomas Thomson14 relates that during his father s lifetime Henry Cavendish received an annuity of 500 pounds. After the death of his father and of other relatives, he became very wealthy, but as he had no extravagant tastes, he had little use for his large income. At the time of his death, he was the largest shareholder in the Bank of England, and his estate was estimated by Dr. Thomson at 1,300,000 pounds, and by Sir William A. Tilden10 at about 1,500,000 pounds. 

The presence of argon in air was suspected by Cavendish as early as 1785, hut was not positively identified until 1894 by lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay. Argon exhibits a characteristic series of lines in file red end of file spectrum. Commercially, argon gas is used 111 incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps as an inert gas to minimize vaporization of file filaments and, for this, is preferable to nitrogen. The gas also is used... 

Henry, William C. (1854). Life of Dalton. London The Cavendish Society. Millington, J. P. (1906). John Dalton. London J. M. Dent. 

Kennedy s unswerving loyalty to the British monarchy was rewarded his daughter, Kathleen Kennedy, the sister of John, Robert, and Edward, married William Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington. Hartington was the son and heir to the 10th Duke of Devonshire and his wife, Lady Mary Alice Cecil (daughter of the 4th Marquess of Salisbury), the Dutchess of Devonshire. 

And so it came about that a mere boy filled the chair of two illustrious predecessors, and under his leadership the Cavendish Laboratory became the dominant center of scientific research in the world. In the lightning flash which splits the heavens Thomson saw a force in which lay the key to the mystery of the material world. He chose as his field of research the realm of electricity. A year before he entered Cambridge, Thomson had heard of a peculiar glass tube or globe constructed by his countryman, William Crookes. By means of a vacuum pump, Crookes drew almost all of the air out of this tube so that only an infinitesimal fraction of the original molecules of air remained in his sealed glass container. With... 

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 1962. Cavendish, Margaret. Poems and Fancies. Printed by William Wilson, London. 1664. 

In Morris Travers account of Ramsay s life and work, it was mentioned twice that Ramsay suggested Williams repeat the Cavendish experiment on air. It was the later repetition of Cavendish s experiment by others that resulted in the discovery of the noble gases ... 

Miss Katherine Williams, who worked for many years in the department on the chemistry of cooked fish, came first under Ramsay. It is said that he suggested that she should repeat the Cavendish experiment on air, but she chose something easier, the determination of the oxygen dissolved in water (p. 69). Later, when he and Miss K. Williams, at Bristol, were investigating an alleged allotropic form of nitrogen (Proc. Chem. Soc., 1886), he says that he suggested that she should... 

The first to respond publicly to Arago was the President of the British Association, the Reverend William Vernon Harcourt.77 The son of the Archbishop of York, an Oxford graduate with a strong interest in chemistry, and one of the founders of the Association, Harcourt used his Presidential Address to fight back. Although Harcourt did claim experimental and theoretical priority for Cavendish, he rested his case substantially upon the superior quality of what Cavendish had done ... 

Cavendish Society, 1855, v-viii and 180-205 translation (with new Preface) by William Odling of Mithode de Chimie, Paris, Mallet-Bachclier, 1854, 218-251. These sections summarize numerous papers by Laurent appearing in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique and in the Comptes rendus de VAcadSmie des Sciences in the years 1832 to 1852.]... 

Cavendish s heritage is commemorated in the great Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. It was William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire and Chancellor of the University, who established the laboratory, in 1874. 

The case of equine husbandry and training is particularly appropriate, since Margaret s husband, William Cavendish, published a famous New and Extraordinary Method to dress Horses in 1667. 

Henry, William C. (1854). Life of Dalton. London The Cavendish Society. 

The idea of chemical equivalents was stated by Henry Cavendish in 1767, clarified by Jeremias Richter in 1795, and popularized by William Wollaston in 1814. Wollaston applied the concept to elements and defined it in such a way that one equivalent of an element corresponded to its atomic mass. Thus, when Wollaston s equivalent is expressed in grams, it is identical to a mole. It is not surprising then that the word mole is derived from molekulargewicht (German, meaning molecular weight ) and was coined in 1901 or 1902. see ALSO Avogadro, Amedeo Cannizzaro, Stanislao Cavendish, Henry Gay-Lussac, Joseph-Louis. 

In 1962 the first chemical noble gas compound, formulated as XePtFg, was synthesized by Neil Bartlett. This result spurred intense research activity and led to the discovery of numerous xenon and krypton compounds. In 2000 the formation of the first argon compound, argon fluorohydride (HArF), was reported by Leonid Khriachtchev and colleagues, see also Argon Cavendish, Henry Helium Krypton Neon Ramsay, William Ruthereord, Ernest Soddy, Frederick Strutt, John Xenon. 

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