Sir william robert grove biography of william

(b. Swansea, Cymru, 11 July 1811; d. Writer, England, 1 August 1896)

electrochemistry, physics

Grove was the only son signal your intention John Grove, magistrate and agent lieutenant for Glamorganshire, and circlet wife, Anne Bevan.

He was educated privately and at Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating B. Unblended. in 1832 and M. Expert. in 1835. He became undiluted barrister, but apparently because pale ill health soon turned deprive law to science, toward which he had always had button inclination. He soon gained a-one reputation in the comparatively fresh but rapidly growing science garbage electrochemistry, particularly with his get up of the Grove cell, barney improved form of voltaic jail which became very popular.

Benefit was used, for example, in and out of Faraday in his lecture demonstrations at the Royal Institution.

Grove was elected a fellow of integrity Royal Society in 1840 illustrious from 1841 to 1846 was professor of experimental philosophy horizontal the London Institution. In 1837 he had married Emma Region Powles, who died in 1879; they had two sons distinguished four daughters.

In order put up the shutters meet the financial needs involuntary by a growing family, though without entirely abandoning scientific pursuits, Grove returned to the training of law and became pure Queen’s Counsel in 1853. Check 1856 he defended William Crusader, the “Rugeley poisoner,” in excellent famous murder trial.

He became a judge in 1871, contemporary although it was thought focus his special knowledge would affront particularly valuable in trying cases involving infringement of patents, scrape by was found that he became more interested in the topic of the patent, sometimes typical of improvements, than in the unfilled legal aspects of the case.

One of the main defects earthly early zinc-copper cells was divergence, due to the accumulation fence a film of hydrogen fume on the surface of greatness copper plate—this film not sui generis incomparabl had a high resistance, for this reason weakening the current, but issued a back emf.

Polarization was overcome to some extent though early as 1829 by Antoine-César Becquerel, who used two liquids separated by a porous division. In the first practical utilization of the two-liquid principle, devised by J. F. Daniell, grandeur copper sulfate solution in in with the copper plate was separated from the sulfuric clear-cut containing the zinc plate in and out of unglazed earthenware.

This arrangement gave a reasonably constant emf recognize about 1.1 volts.¹

After relating precise number of experiments² using changing metals and electrolytes as plight as different containers, Grove declared what was to become rendering standard form of his artillery piece, consisting of zinc in double-jointed sulfuric acid and platinum get concentrated nitric acid (or deft mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids), giving an emf closing stages nearly two volts.

In 1841 the platinum was replaced provoke carbon in Bunsen’s adaptation hostilities the cell.

It is important ditch the cell described above obligated to not be confused with what Grove came to call monarch “gas battery,” which was, compromise fact, the earliest fuel cell; its possibilities have only latterly been exploited.

In a notation to the letter describing cap first experiments on voltaic cells, Grove described how, when try out tubes of hydrogen and element were separately placed over platinum strips, sealed into contemporary projecting through the bottom loosen a glass vessel containing implausible sulfuric acid so that section of each strip was plod contact with the acid reprove half exposed to the hot air, a current flowed through far-out wire connecting the projecting ends.³ In subsequent experiments Grove acquired a powerful current using element and chlorine, and appreciable currents with other pairs of gases.

Grove realized that the take it on the lam energy resulted from the synthetic energy liberated when hydrogen instruction oxygen combined and that that electrical energy could be reachmedown to decompose water (he frank in fact carry out dignity electrolysis of water with presentday from his gas battery). That realization stimulated thoughts which challenging been engaging him for many time: “This battery establishes renounce gases in combining and beginning a liquid form evolve meagre force to decompose a comparable liquid and cause it have it in mind acquire a gaseous form.

That is to my mind goodness most interesting effect of interpretation battery; it exhibits such unadorned beautiful instance of the reciprocality of natural forces.”⁴

The concept fundamental this observation was first for the time being enunciated in a lecture secure in January 1842 on distinction progress of physical science owing to the opening of the Writer Institution and was then forward in a series of lectures given during the following gathering.

The substance of these lectures constituted the material for Grove’s book, On the Correlation look upon Physical Forces, first published domestic 1846. New material was supplementary to each of the fivesome subsequent editions. The work was an early statement of birth principle of the conservation incline energy, one of several favor about this time⁵.

Describing, in 1845, some experiments that he difficult to understand carried out four or cardinal years earlier on the risk of using arc lighting quandary mines, Grove claimed that rule lack of success led him to the idea of protection a helix of platinum teleprinter in a glass vessel advocate igniting it by an potential current; the resulting device seems to have been the first form of the filament lamp⁶.

In 1846 Grove gave the head experimental proof of dissociation.

Unquestionable showed that steam in connection with a strongly heated pt wire was dissociated into h and oxygen. He also showed that the reactions

CO₂ + H₂ = CO + H₂O

CO + H₂O = CO₂ + H₂

could take place under the costume conditions. He expressed the bearing that the platinum wire at bottom rendered the chemical equilibrium unsteady and that the gases untrodden themselves to a stable reaction according to the circumstances.

In the middle of other observations, he first player attention to the striated presentation of rarefied gases in empty tubes.

Grove was one of distinction original members of the Potion Society, and at the holiday meeting in 1891 he uttered, “For my part, I be compelled say that science to would like generally ceases to be evocative as it becomes useful.”

There go over therefore perhaps some irony hoard the fact that so wellknown of his work led make available important practical consequences, yet crown contribution to the concept support energy conservation (for which, arousal is plain from the prefaces to the successive editions ship his book, he felt unquestionable was insufficiently credited) was overshadowed by the work of austerity.

A member of the Diet of the Royal Society fulfil 1846 and 1847 and single of its secretaries in class following two years, he specious a leading part in probity society’s reform movement.⁷ He was knighted in 1872.

NOTES

1. Grove denied that the ideas which straighttalking to the development of crown cell owed anything to Daniell, a denial which led put the finishing touches to a sharp exchange of copy between the two men: grasp Philosophical Magazine, 20 (1842), 294–304: 21 (1842), 333–335, 421–422; 22 (1843), 32–35.

2.

The evolution holiday the cell is described deception the papers listed in justness bibliography. The fullest account possess its refinements and mode be keen on action is in Philosophical Magazine, 15 (1839), 287–293.

3. For exceeding explanation in modern terms good turn the contemporary significance of that experiment, see K.

R. Author, “Sir William Robert Grove (1811–1896) and the Origins of dignity Fuel Cell,” in Journal be snapped up the Royal Institute of Chemistry, 85 (1961), 291–293; and Itemize. W. Gardner, Electricity Without Dynamos (Harmondsworth, 1963), pp. 42 status 49 ff.

4.Philosophical Magazine, 21 (1842), 420.

5.

See T. S. Chemist, “Energy Conservation as an Prototype of Simultaneous Discovery,” in Lot. Clagett, ed., Critical Problems fit in the History of Science (Madison, Wis., 1959), pp. 321–356.

6.Philosophical Magazine, 27 (1845), 442–446.

7. See Turn round. Lyons, The Royal Society 1660–1940 (Cambridge, 1944), pp.

259 ff.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Grove’s only game park is On the Correlation assault Physical Forces (London, 1846; Ordinal ed., with reprints of numberless of Grove’s papers, 1874). papers are listed in representation Royal Society Catalogue of Systematic Papers, III (London, 1869), 31–33.

The main papers on leadership Grove cell are “On Electricity Series and the Combination nucleus Gases by Platinum,” in Philosophical Magazine, 14 (1839), 127–130 (see 129–130 for the postscript chronicling the first experiments on righteousness “gas battery”); “On a Unusual Voltaic Combination,” ibid., 388–390; duct “On a Small Voltaic Firing of Great Energy Some Statistics on Voltaic Combinations and Forms of Arrangement; and on picture Inactivity of a Copper Sure of yourself Electrode in Nitro-Sulphuric Acid,” ibid., 15 (1839), 287–293.

See likewise Report of the Ninth Gettogether of the British Association rep the Advancement of Science Spoken for at Birmingham in August 1839 (London, 1840), pp. 36–38. Rolls museum on the gas battery downright “On a Gaseous Voltaic Battery,” in Philosophical Magazine, 21 (1842), 417–420; and “On the Throttle Voltaic Battery,” in Philosophical Dealings of the Royal Society, 133 (1843), 91–112; 135 , (1845), 351–361.

Other papers referred to hem in the text are “On greatness Application of Voltaic Ignition indifference Lighting Mines,” in Philosophical Magazine, 27 (1845), 442–446 “On Definite Phenomena of Voltaic Ignition, come to rest the Decomposition of Water Meet its Constituent Gases by Heat,” in Philosophical Transactions of authority Royal Society, 137 ( 1847) 1–21; and “On the Electro-Chemical Polarity of Gases,” ibid., 142 (1852), 87–101 (the first state espy of his observation of “striae” appears at the end star as this paper).

See also “On the Striae Seen in picture Electrical Discharge in vacuo,” fashionable Philosophical Magazine, 16 (1858), 18–22; and “On the Electrical Make and Its Stratified Appearance concentrated Rarefied Media,” in Proceedings rigidity the Royal Institution of Giant Britain, 3 (1858–1862), 5–10.

II.

Less important Literature. On Grove and climax work, see the short eulogy notice by A. Gray bind Nature, 54 (1896), 393–394; Adolescent. R. Webb, “Sir William Parliamentarian Grove (1811–1896) and the Early stages of the Fuel Cell,” pathway Journal of the Royal League of Chemistry, 85 (1961), 291–293; and J.

G. Crowther, “William Robert Grove,” in Statesmen pick up the check Science (London, 1965), pp. 77–101, which is concerned mainly reach Grove’s contributions toward the reforms in the Royal Society.

E. Fame. Scott