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| May 29th | Sir Humphry Davy (Death) |
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Ludgvan – born Humphry Davy (1778 – 1829) is renowned for his isolation, using electricity, of the elements potassium and sodium (1807) and then, later, calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron (1808). He also demonstrated the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine and experimented with, and demonstrated, the effects of ‘laughing gas’ (nitrous oxide). The inventor of the Miners’ Safety Lamp, he is also renowned for developing the skills of his assistant, Michael Faraday. Davy became a world famous lecturer and established the weekly, Friday, lectures at the Royal Institution, which became even more famous with Michael Faraday’s Friday and Christmas Lectures that continue until this day. Davy was notorious for his, often, reckless experiments. He tasted all the chemical substances he isolated and, upon hearing of the discovery of nitrogen trichloride (NCl3) in 1812 he immediately wrote to its discoverer, Pierre Louis Dulong (1785 – 1838), asking for the procedure even knowing that Dulong had lost two fingers and an eye in the first isolation of the viscous, yellow, liquid which is shock-sensitively explosive. Davy’s early and sudden death may have been accelerated by his habit of tasting the chemicals.
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