February 18th William Grylls Adams FRS (Birth)

Professor William Grylls Adams FRS, the  brother of the discoverer of the planet Neptune, John Couch Adams (January 21st) was a pioneer in scientific education but is most famous for his discovery that a ray of light could generate an electric current and is credited with the discovery of solar power and being the inventor of the solar cell.

Educated at Cambridge (St. John’s College) he worked as vice-principal of Peterborough Training College (1859) and mathematics master at Marlborough College (1860 – 1863) before moving to King's College, London as a lecturer in natural philosophy where he worked under James Clerk Maxwell, the world famous mathematician who reconciled magnetic and electric fields to explain the formation of electromagnetic radiation.  

Learning of the work of Alexandre Becquerel (1820–1891), father of Henri Becquerel (the discoverer of radioactivity) who had discovered that illuminating one of a pair of plates of different metals in dilute acid changed the electromotive force (EMF), Adams went on to determine that light shone on selenium generated an electric current.  This was the first discovery of solar power and led Adams to invent the very first solar cell. 

That he was a visionary as well as practising scientist is demonstrated by the very first suggestion that solar power could transform life in India with his publication ‘Solar Heat: A Substitute Fuel for Tropical Countries, Bombay’ (1878).





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