1. The Ingenious Irish
Great Irish scientists & innovators
whose ideas shaped the world
Mary Mulvihill, www.ingeniousireland.ie
IET 23.5.2013 (c) Copyright Ingenious Ireland, 2013

2. Some great scientists...

3. The ‘father’ of chemistry – Robert Boyle
Boyle’s Law (gas volume and pressure)
• Experiments with an air pump
• Modern analytical chemistry
• Modern concept of an element
• Litmus tests, for acid, base and neutral
• Analytical tests for mineral water
• Assays for gold and silver and salts
• Formalin as a preservative

4. Irish algebra, helped to put a man on the Moon
Sir William Rowan Hamilton 1805-1865
1843: invented Quaternion algebra
Hamilton also laid the foundations of quantum mechanics.

5. A great experimentalist: John Tyndall
• First proof of Greenhouse gas
effect (absorption spectroscopy of
gases)
• First explanation of why the sky is
blue
•First proof of Pasteur’s germ
theory
•Champion and populariser of
science,
•Mountaineer & glaciologist
•Tyndall institutes

6. New micro drop analyser
based on Tyndall’s work on spectrometry

7. The world’s largest telescope: 1845-1917
Birr Castle ‘Leviathon’,
Restored to working order.

8. 1845: Revealed the spiral nature of galaxies and
nebulae
The whirlpool galaxy
1845 Birr 2005 Hubble Space Telescope

9. 1846: We invented seismology
Robert Mallet
Ingenious engineer 1810-81

10. R&J Mallet: first seismic atlas of the world
Reveals the Pacific rim of fire, 1850s

11. George Francis FitzGerald 1851-1901
Radio waves, cosmic snowballs, the speed of light

12. Plaque at No 7 Ely Place

13. 1892: First electrical measurement of starlight
Fitzgerald, Monck & Minchin, 16 Earlsfort Terrace

14. George Gabriel Stokes
Stokes’s conjecture
Stokes’s phenomenon
Stokes’s layer
Stokes’s line
Stokes’s law of hydrodynamics
Stokes’s aw of fluorescence
Navier-Stokes equations . . .
the stokes, the standard unit of
kinematic viscosity, is equal to
1cm2/second.
Lucasion Professor at Cambridge
(Newton and Hawking)

15. Thermodynamics and degrees Kelvin
William Thomson,
Baron Kelvin 1824-1907
His many inventions included
an instrument that made the
first successful transatlantic
telegraph cable possible.

16. We split the atom
1951 Nobel physics prize Ernest Walton, with John Cockcroft
Experimental
accelerator and
detector, 1932
Proved e=mc2
Began the atomic
era

17. Walton plaque, TCD Physics Dept

18. Erwin Schrodinger, Nobel prize 1933
The Austrian physicist lived in
Dublin 1939-1956 and took
Irish citizenship.
His book, ‘What is Life?’,
written in Dublin, inspired a
generation of biologists,
including Crick and Watson.

19. Erwin Schrodinger plaque, 64 Merrion Square

20. J.D. Bernal, aka Sage
1901-71
X-ray crystallography of biological molecules

21. X-Ray chrystallography
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale
1903-71
The structure of benzene
and diamond, and other
inorganic molecules

22. Engineering & technology
(Rather a lot of militaristic technology!)

23. Steam turbine
Charles Parsons 1884 – made the 20th-century possible
We electrified the world!

24. Turbinia, 1890s
Parsons’s turbine-powered ship
. . . and revolutionised transport at sea

25. World’s first guided missile
Louis Brennan’s ‘dirigible’ torpedo, 1860s

26. Mallet’s ‘portable’ 36” mortar for the Crimean War

27. We changed the face of war
The first commercial submarine
John Philip Holland, 1890s

28. Sir Howard Grubb
1902: The first effective submarine periscope

29. The world’s best telescopes
Grubb optical works, Rathmines: casting the Melbourne telescope

30. We proposed the Suez Canal
Explorer Francis Rawdon Chesney
Images: www.ulsterhistory.co.uk

31. Quality of life (and death). . .

32. Artificial fertiliser:
Sir James Murray, 1817
He invented a way to make
minerals soluble for plants.
We revolutionised farming:

33. Lightweight tractor: Harry Ferguson, 1930s
Manufactured initially by Ford, replaced the horse

34. 1991: Rooster potato
Teagasc Oakpark Carlow

35. Francis Rynd, Dublin’s Meath Hospital
1843 The hypodermic syringe

36. Arthur Leared
First exhibited Crystal Palace, London, 1851
1851: The modern stereo, rubber stethoscope

37. John Joly’s ‘Dublin Method’, used radon gas in place of radium
1910-14 First effective radiotherapy for cancer

38. John Joly:
Colour photography 1890s
The steam calorimeter

39. Sir James Martin, 1893-1981
Image: www.martin-baker.com
Saving military pilots: the MB ejector seat

40. 1860: The humane hangman’s drop
Lucinda Sly, hanged on this
trapdoor, Carlow 1835
Rev Samuel Haughton

41. And now for something
completely different. . .

42. What made Guinness great was quality control and statistics . . .

43. William Sealy Gosset, Guiness Brewer
1908 Student ‘t’ test

44. We invented whiskey . . . Not once, but twice!
In the Middle-Ages, missionaries and Crusaders brought
distilling back from the Arab world.
The Irish distilled beer, and made the first proto-whiskey

45. The continuous, column still – the first heat exchange device
Aeneas Coffey, 1830
Produced whiskey so pure it was almost industrial alcohol!

46. Milk chocolate: Sir Hans Sloane, 1680s
The Irish add milk to everything, inventing new industries,
such as milk chocolate and Baileys cream liqueur.

47. Joe ‘Tayto’ Murphy
1954 Flavoured crisps

48. We’re still inventing flavours:
Shamrock-flavoured crisps :-)

49. Gordon Foster
Trinity College Dublin
1960s: The ISBN

50. The Penny Black: 1840
World’s first adhesive stamp.
Hard to separate

51. Dublin printer Henry Archer
The Royal Mail paid him £4000 for his patents.
1850 Perforated stamps

52. Irish stamp marking 350 years of Boyle’s Law, in 2012
Now ‘peel and stick’ -- but still with ‘perforations’

53. 2009: Sugru, flexible self setting rubber
Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh
www.sugru.com

54. Discover Ingenious Ireland . . .
www.ingeniousireland.ie

55. Ingenious Dublin walking tours:
Geology <> Blood & Guts <> Great Irish Inventions <>
Ingenious Scientists & Engineers

56. DIY tours! Ready-to-go MP3 audio tours & apps
From just €1.99

57. Try the e-book
First chapter is FREE
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