Meteorology, climate science, magnetism, acoustics, bacteriology; all these fields were greatly advanced by the contributions to them made by John Tyndall. However if you’re like many people – including may who consider themselves relatively well-versed in the history of the sciences – his name may not be a familiar one to you. Yet in his time, his writings were widely read on both sides of the Atlantic, and his lectures filled halls night after night.
Seeking to bring long overdue attention to Tyndall’s life and work, Roland Jackson, visiting fellow at the Royal Institution and one of the four general editors of the The Correspondence of John Tyndall, has written the first new biography of Tyndall to see publication in over seventy years, The Ascent of John Tyndall; Victorian Scientist, Mountaineer, and Public Intellectual.
I will readily admit that I count myself amongst those mentioned above for whom Tyndall’s life and accomplishments are not as familiar as they should be, which is why I’m quite eager to begin reading this new biography and thus remedy this unfortunate absence of information in my understanding of Victorian science and society.
