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Examples of Scientists - Thomas Young

There is nothing staid, nothing settled, in this universe. All is rippling, all is dancing; all is quickness and triumph - Virginia Woolf - The Waves

Index

Thomas Young's background

What makes Thomas Young such a great example?

Thomas Young's background

Thomas Young was an English polymath whose work spanned vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, languages and Egyptology. He revived the wave theory of light against the then-dominant Newtonian corpuscular theory, described the mechanism of accommodation in the eye and the basis of colour vision, coined the term 'energy' in its modern physical sense, and made an early, influential contribution to the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone. He was so broadly accomplished in his own lifetime that he was nicknamed 'Phenomenon Young'.

What makes Thomas Young such a great example?

Birth of Thomas Young

Thomas Young is a good test case for a chart of sheer breadth of talent: rather than one single discovery, his career shows sustained, wide-ranging brilliance across physics, medicine, linguistics and archaeology, all pursued alongside a full-time medical practice.

The chart shown is Thomas Young's birthchart, together with transits for his 1801 double-slit experiment demonstrating the wave nature of light, guessed at midday, around the outside. Aspect lines [traditional] are between the transits and his birthchart.