The article tells about who Thomas Jung is, what contribution he made to the development of physics and what else he did besides her.
The science
At all times, there were inquisitive people who were interested to know the true structure of the Universe, of its individual processes or phenomena. Nowadays, the significance of science for humanity is not in doubt, but this was not always the case. Fortunately, those days are long gone, and over the past several hundred years, outstanding discoveries from the field of physics and other sciences have been constantly made. And Thomas Jung is one of those who are put on a par with other great scientists of past years - Bekkerel, Lomonosov, Mendeleev.
But what is he famous for and what discoveries did he make? We will talk about this in this article. This scientist is also known for not being limited to his studies in physics alone. On his account scientific work in optics, mechanics, philology and physiology of vision.
Thomas Jung's contribution to physics
In 1793, Jung, in one of his works on human vision, indicated that eye accommodation occurs due to the process of changing the curvature of the lens. Further observations in the field of optics led the scientist to the idea that the corpuscular theory of light, which at that time was considered the dominant one, is not entirely true. When Jung spoke out in favor of the wave theory of light, almost all the scientists of England at that time disagreed with him, and under the pressure of their opinion, he temporarily abandoned his own conclusions. Later, however, Thomas Jung again returned to his wave theory of light and was the first to consider the problem of wave superposition. Exploring this phenomenon further, he discovered the principle of interference. True, this term was introduced by Jung himself only a few years later.
And in one of the reports to the Royal Society, he was also the first to explain the so-called Newton rings, relying on the basics of interference in this, and talked about his first experiments, the purpose of which was to measure the length of various light waves. So now we know what Thomas Jung is famous for.
In 1804, he thoroughly examined and described the phenomenon of diffraction. After researching the scientist Fresnel on the interference of light, which is polarized, Jung hypothesized that the oscillations of light waves are cheap. In particular, Jung is credited with developing the theory of color vision, which is based on the assumption that there are photosensitive fibers in the eye shell that respond to the three main light spectra. Now consider the most famous experience of Thomas Young.
Experience
This experience was the proof of the wave theory of light. And his first results were published in 1803. In this experiment, a ray of light was directed to an opaque screen, on which two parallel slots were located. Behind the screen was a projection screen. A feature of the parallel slots was that their width was approximately equal to the wavelength of the light emitted in the experiment. And as a result of this, a whole series of interference fringes appeared on the screen, which proved the correctness of the theory that Thomas Jung defended. The physicist has clearly demonstrated to the observers the wave nature of light.
Other scientific work
This outstanding scientist of his time was also engaged in linguistics - he proved the kinship of Indo-European languages. And by the way, it was he who came up with the definition of “Indo-European”. Also among his merits is the introduction of such a characteristic as the numerical value of elasticity during compression or tension, which is called Young's modulus.
Thomas Jung: biography
The future scientist was born in 1773 in the family of a simple silk merchant. He learned to read early and already in childhood was distinguished by a very good memory, curiosity and a strong thirst for science. So, already at the age of 8, he was seriously interested in mathematics and geodesy, where he showed remarkable talents. And as a teenager, he already knew languages such as Latin, Hebrew, Italian, Arabic and French. Not every adult can boast so much linguistic knowledge! In addition to all this, according to the recollections of relatives, Jung was also fond of history and botany.
But initially, Jung chose medicine as his occupation. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1796. But the event that made him financially independent and allowed him to go into science without thinking about the source of earnings was the death of his uncle - he left young Thomas with a large monetary inheritance.
Later, Jung opened private medical practice and at the same time began to publish. But anonymously, because he feared for his reputation as a doctor. Later he became interested in acoustics and optics. At the age of 21, he became an active member of the Royal Society of London and for some time served as secretary in it. In 1803 he received the title of professor at the Royal Institute. A year later, he married Elise Maxwell.
Despite his successes in physics, from 1811 until the very end of his life, Thomas Jung continued to work as a doctor in a hospital in London. He did not part with the profession of a doctor in 1818, when he became secretary of the Bureau of Longitude and editor of such a publication as The Nautical Calendar. Jung also contributed, in addition to one of the editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, by writing approximately 60 chapters. These were mainly biographies of scientists.
Conclusion
In addition to practicing medicine and science, he is also known as a good musician, art connoisseur and gymnast. This versatile person passed away on May 10, 1829. Thomas Jung is buried in the city of London.