Silvanus P. Thompson

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Silvanus Phillips Thompson (June 19, 1851 – June 12, 1916) was a professor of physics at the City and Guilds Technical College in Finsbury, England. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1891 and was known for his work as an electrical engineer and as an author. Thompson's most notable work is his 1910 text Calculus Made Easy, a textbook that teaches the fundamentals of calculus, which is still used as a supplemental textbook today.^[1] Thompson also wrote a popular physics text, Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism.^[2]

[edit] Biography

Silvanus Thompson was born in the year of the Great Exhibition of 1851 to a Quaker family in York, England. His father served as a master at the Quaker School at Bootham in York. In 1873 Silvanus Thompson was made the science master at Bootham School.

On February 11, 1876 he heard Sir William Crookes give an evening discourse at the Royal Institution on The Mechanical Action of Light when Crookes demonstrated his light mill or radiometer. Thompson was intrigued and stimulated and developed a major interest in light and optics (his other main interest being electromagnetism). In 1876 he was appointed as a lecturer in Physics at University College, Bristol, and later was made Professor in 1878 at the age of 27.

A major concern of Thompson was the area of technical education and he made a series of continental tours to France, Germany and Switzerland to compare the continental approach to that in the UK. In 1879 he gave a paper at the Society of Arts on Apprenticeship, Scientific and Unscientific when he detailed the deficiencies in technical education in England. In the discussion, the opinion was expressed that England was too conservative to make use of trade schools and that continental methods would not be applicable in the UK. Thompson recognized that technical education was the means by which scientific knowledge could be put into action and spent the rest of his life putting his vision into practical realization.

In 1878 the City & Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education was founded. Finsbury Technical College was a teaching institution created by the City & Guilds institute and it was as its Principal and Professor of Physics that Thompson was to devote the next 30 years.

Thompson’s particular gift was in his ability to communicate difficult scientific concepts in a clear and interesting manner. He attended and lectured at the Royal Institution giving the Christmas lectures in 1896 on Light, Visible and Invisible with an account of Röntgen Light. He was an impressive lecturer and the radiologist AE Barclay said that: “None who heard him could forget the vividness of the word-pictures he placed before them.”

Thompson repeated Röntgens experiments on the day after the discovery was announced in the UK and following this gave the first public demonstration of the new rays at the Clinical Society of London on March 30, 1896. William Hale White said: “The audience was thrilled, most seeing for the first time actual pieces of bones and metal. Silvanus Thompson was a prince among lecturers. I have never heard a better demonstration or attended a more memorable medical meeting.”

He was the first President of the Röntgen Society (later to become the British Institute of Radiology). He described the society as being between medicine, physics and photography. It was his genius that put its stamp on that society and has made it into the rich amalgam of medical, scientific and technical members that it is today. As he said in his presidential address to the Röntgen Society: “The pioneers have opened the way into the wilderness; they are now being followed by those who will occupy the new territory, complete its survey, and map out its features. Not until every corner is explored and charted will the work of our Society be ended.”

Thompson was committed to truth in all aspects and his 1915 Swarthmore Lecture delivered to the Society of Friends was The Quest for Truth, indicating his belief in truth and integrity in all aspects of our lives. Thompson remained an active member of the Religious Society of Friends, throughout his life ^[3]

[edit] Literary works

Thompson wrote many books of a technical nature particularly Elementary Lessons in Electricity & Magnetism (1890), Dynamo Electrical Machinery (1896) and the classic Calculus Made Easy (1910). His book on calculus was first published in 1910, and has remained continuously in print until recently.

He had many interests including painting, working in his greenhouse and literature. He wrote biographies of Michael Faraday and Lord Kelvin. He wrote about William Gilbert, the Elizabethan physician and produced an edition of Gilbert’s De Magnete at the Chiswick Press in 1900.

His scientific library of historical and working books is preserved intact at the Institution of Electrical Engineers and is a wonderful collection (he was President of the IEE). There are many classic books on electricity, magnetism and optics. The collection consists of 900 rare books and 2500 nineteenth and early twentieth century titles with approximately 200 autograph letters.

[edit] Notes