Joseph Henry : the rise of an American scientist
- Date:
- ©1997.
- Author:
- Moyer, Albert E., 1945-
- Collecting Area:
- Rare Books
- Call Number:
- QC 16 H37 M69 1997 LOCAL
- Publisher:
- Smithsonian Institution Press
- ISBN:
- 1560987766
- Abstract:
- By the time of his death in 1878, Joseph Henry was America's most eminent physical scientist. His achievements in the study of electricity, magnetism, and telegraphy during an era of national scientific aspiration had led to a thirty-year tenure as the first secretary of the Smithsonian, assuring his place in history as a key builder of an institutional framework for scientific inquiry. In this first biography of Henry since 1950, Albert E. Moyer reconstructs the crucial early phases of Henry's career, tracing how a boy of modest means in a nation of scant scientific resources attained international prominence in the field of physics. Moyer also offers a revisionist view of Henry's most enduring contribution - the discovery of mutual induction - and explains how the parallel work of British researcher Michael Faraday, who traditionally has been credited with the discovery, depended on a powerful electromagnet designed by Henry. Detailing Henry's progress from aspiring engineer leading a ragtag survey party in New York State's back country to adored Princeton professor teaching a generation not only the concepts but also the moral and religious implications of physics, the book concludes with Henry's candidacy in 1846 for the secretaryship of the fledgling Smithsonian Institution.
- Physical Description:
- xii, 348 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
- Notes:
- Special Collections' copy has dust jacket. LOCAL
- Subjects:
- Physicists United States Biography, 33.01 history of physics. (NL-LeOCL)077595513 bcl, Physicists, Biografie gnd, Natuurkundigen. gtt, and Physicists United States Biography. nli
- Genres/Forms:
- Biography, Biographies, and Biographies (form) (NL-LeOCL)088141799 gtt
- Names:
- Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878, Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878, Henry, Joseph 1797-1878 gnd, Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878. nli, Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878. (NL-LeOCL)06870772X nta, and Henry, Joseph. swd
- Geographic Terms:
- United States
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