Joseph Black Scientist
- Name : Black
- Born : 1728
- Died : 1799
- Category : Science
- Finest Moment : Rediscovery of carbon dioxide
Born on 16 April 1728 to a Belfast father (of Scottish descent), and a Scottish mother, in Bordeaux, where his father was working in the wine trade. After studying medicine and the natural sciences at Glasgow University from the age of 16, he transferred to Edinburgh in 1751 to complete his medical studies. Five years later he was back in Glasgow, where he succeeded his old instructor in chemistry, William Cullen, as lecturer in chemistry. He was also Professor of anatomy and later took the chair of medicine. But these posts merely allowed him tinker about with science.
His rediscovery of carbon dioxide by the heating of magnesium carbonate anticipated modern chemistry. He found that it acts as an acid, is produced by fermentation, respiration, and the burning of charcoal. He also inferred its presence in the atmosphere.
His other major area lay in thermodynamics, and in particular he presented the ideas of latent and specific heats. He noticed that when ice melted, for example, it took up heat, but did not actually undergo any change of temperature. He argued that this heat must have combined with the particles of ice, thereby becoming latent. This is one reason why it feels so cold during a thaw.
Like any good scientist, he verified this theory in 1761. Black also observed that different substances in equal masses nonetheless required different amounts of heat to raise them to the same temperature. These masses, according to Black, had specific heats, thus allowing delighted generations of schoolchildren thereafter to enjoy heating water in little pots and dipping thermometers into anything dippable.
One of his friends was James Watt, who must have been influenced by some of these findings, enabling him to go on and invent the condensing steam engine. Black never published details of his latent heat findings, but his lectures were written out and published after his death by his friend and colleague John Robison, in 1803. Black died on 10 November 1799, in Edinburgh.