Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher (Thorpe) Quotes

“Davy, Humphry”

“History of chemistry”

“With the substance from soda the appearance and effects were analogous.”

“When heated in oxygen to a sufficiently high temperature, both substances burnt with a brilliant white flame.”

“He eventually found that they might be preserved in naphtha.”

“Davy then attempted to determine the amount of the "metallic bases" in potash and soda respectively... the results are fairly accurate.”

“His usual method of erasure was by dipping his finger in the ink-pot; and... he was simply "Death on pens!"”

“Although no great stress can be laid on numbers so obtained, they serve to indicate that Davy had not yet obtained the pure metal.”

“[H]e seldom entered the laboratory before ten or eleven in the morning, and rarely left it later than four, and he was scarcely ever known to visit it after he had dressed for dinner.”

“M. Curaudau's hypothesis is shown to be based upon the accidental association of naphtha with the metals he employed.”

“When the potassium was exposed to air its metallic lustre was immediately destroyed, and it was ultimately wholly reconverted into potash by absorption of oxygen and moisture.”

“Davy was perfectly reckless with apparatus; with him to think was to act, and he frequently had half a dozen experiments going on simultaneously, upon disconnected parts of the same inquiry.”

“Davy endeavoured to gain an approximation to its relative weight by comparing the weight of a globule with that of an equal-sized globule of mercury.”

“[H]e said of the alchemists that "even their failures developed some unsought-for object partaking of the marvellous"—and the statement in this case is even more true of himself.”

“Few discoveries of like magnitude have been made and perfected in so short a time, and few memoirs have been more momentous in result than that which Davy put together in a few hours, and in which he announced his results to the world.”

“He next tried potash in igneous fusion, and here the results were more encouraging: there were obvious and striking signs of decomposition; combustible matter was produced accompanied with flame and a most intense light.”

“For the references to the early history of the Royal Institution I am mainly indebted to Dr. Bence Jones's book.”

“Sir Walter Scott, who knew Davy well and who admired his genius and his many social gifts, characterised [Paris'] book as "ungentlemanly" in tone; and there is no doubt that it gave pain to many of Davy's friends who, like Scott, believed that justice had not been done to his character.”

“It would seem from his description of its properties that the potassium he obtained was most probably alloyed with sodium derived from impure potash. Potassium is solid up to 143° F.; but, as Davy subsequently found, an alloy of potassium and sodium is fluid at ordinary temperatures.”

“On November 16th, 1809, he read his fourth Bakerian lecture. It was "On some new Electrochemical Researches on various Objects, particularly the metallic Bodies, from the Alkalies and Earths, and on some Combinations of Hydrogene."”