William Hyde Wollaston

William Hyde Wollaston ( born August 6, 1766 East Dereham (Norfolk, England); † December 22, 1828 in London) was an English physician, physicist and chemist who in 1803 discovered the chemical elements palladium and rhodium.

Life and work

In 1793 he received his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. During his studies, his interest in chemistry, crystallography and physics was awakened. After he practiced until 1800, when a doctor, he gave up medicine and devoted himself to these areas.

In 1802 he took seven dark lines in the spectrum of the sun. Regardless of Joseph von Fraunhofer, he discovered so that the absorption lines. Joseph von Fraunhofer succeeded the first 1813. Since Fraunhofer took advantage of this discovery for his measurements on optical glasses and thus made ​​public, the absorption lines are called Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum also.

Also in 1802, he developed a refractometer which utilizes the total reflection, in order to determine the refractive index of a sample.

He developed a method for processing of platinum ores in 1803 and discovered two previously unknown chemical elements, palladium and rhodium. 1807 developed a Wollaston prism camera with character, the camera lucida. In 1810 he discovered the cystine. In 1817 he developed an angle-measuring device, the Dipsektor. He also developed in 1820 the so-called Wollaston prism which consists of two composite prisms. Furthermore, the Wollaston wire, a very fine wire of platinum, named after him.

Honors

In 1793 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; 1804 to 1816 he was its secretary. The Royal Society awarded him in 1802 with the Copley Medal in 1828 with the Royal Medal.

The mineral wollastonite and Lake Wollaston Lake are named after him, as well as the moon crater Wollaston.

Writings (selection )

• On a New Metal, found in crude Platina. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Volume 94, 1804, pp. 419-430 ( doi: 10.1098/rstl.1804.0019, full text ).
• On the Discovery of Palladium; with Observations on other Substances found with Platina. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Volume 95, 1805, pp. 316-330 ( doi: 10.1098/rstl.1805.0024, full text ).