Thomas Charles Hope

Thomas Charles Hope ( born July 21, 1766 Edinburgh, † June 13, 1844 in Edinburgh) was a Scottish physician and chemist. He was co-discoverer of the chemical element strontium.

Life and work

Thomas Charles Hope was the youngest son of the botanist John Hope (1725-1786) and his wife Juliana Stevenson. After his education at the High School in Edinburgh, he studied at Edinburgh University and became a doctor of medicine in 1787. In October 1787 he went to Glasgow where he became professor of chemistry at the University of Glasgow. In 1789 he took over in addition the Assistant Professor of Medicine and taught until 1791, when he gave lectures on chemistry, both disciplines.

From 1795 on he was, until 1799, together with Joseph Black, professor of chemistry in Edinburgh.

Hope 1793 provided the experimental proof that the at Strontian discovered natural mineral strontianite, as already suggested by Adair Crawford, includes a new alkaline earth metal, which differs from barium. In 1805 he showed that water has its greatest density is several degrees above freezing.

Hope was a member of numerous scientific societies:

Writings

• Tentamen inaugurale, quaedam de plantarum motibus et vita complectens ... Balfour et Smellie, Edinburgh 1787 - Dissertation
• Account of a mineral from Strontian, and of a peculiar species of Earth Which it Contains. In: Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Volume 4, Part 2, 1798, pp. 3-39
• Experiments and Observations upon the Contraction of Water by Heat at Low Temperatures. In: Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Volume 5, 1805, pp. 379-405