John Robison (physicist)
John Robison ( born February 4, 1739 Boghall, Baldernock, Stirlingshire, † January 30, 1805 ) was a Scottish mathematician, chemist and physicist. He was professor of natural philosophy ( physics) at the University of Edinburgh. 1783 to 1798 he was the first Secretary General of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
He was the son of a merchant from Glasgow and studied at the University of Glasgow with a Master 's degree 1756th After a short stay in London, he went as a midshipman to the Royal Navy and was involved in the expeditions to Quebec and Portugal. He did there out especially in navigation. After his return he worked for the Board of Longitude, which the clock by John Harrison tested 1760/61 on a sea voyage to Jamaica. Back in Glasgow he worked on chemistry and in 1766 successor of Joseph Black Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. 1770-1773 he accompanied Admiral Charles Knowles as his private secretary to Saint Petersburg, where Knowles should reform the Russian Navy and Robison taught in 1772 as professor of cadets at the Naval Academy in Brasov in mathematics. Upon returning in 1773 he became professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and has lectured on various branches of physics, which were published as books. His approach to science was very practical. He also advised government agencies and industry during his time as a professor in Edinburgh.
In 1769 he realized before Coulomb, the similar electric charges repel each according to Coulomb's law (as well as Henry Cavendish ). He worked with James Watt together, among other things, the project of a steam- driven car and testified in favor of Watt as the inventor when he ran into financial difficulties. He is also considered the inventor of the siren that he used the late 18th century for organs, before the Frenchman Charles Cagniard de la Tour (1819 ).
Robison was part of the movement of the Scottish Enlightenment. He wrote more than forty articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica ( 3rd edition 1797), which popularized the natural sciences and treated Hydraulic and Maritime topics.
In 1797 he published the book that made him famous: Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati and Reading Societies ( "evidence of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe, carried out in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and reading societies " ). In this report Robison on the conspiracy theory that the Illuminati, a secret society in 1785 resolved radical Enlightenment, European Freemasons had infiltrated and triggered the French Revolution. These theses have been widely used in the heated climate of the 1790s and discussed. In New England they triggered a veritable Illuminatenpanik.
In 1803 he published the lectures on chemistry by Black. In 1804 he published out the first volume of his Elements of mechanical philosophy, the only one of the volumes, which appeared ( about dynamics and astronomy ).
In 1798 he was made an honorary Doctor of later Princeton University.
His son John Robison (1778-1843) brought it as a military advisor in India to prosperity and was an inventor.