William de Wiveleslie Abney

Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney ( born July 24, 1843 in Derby, † December 3, 1920 in Folkestone ) was a British chemist and photographer.

Life and work

Abney was born the son of a clergyman. After attending the Royal Military Academy, he served in the Royal Engineers in India. Back in England in 1869, he worked teacher of chemistry at the School of Military Engineering in Chatham. In this position he had much time for his chemical experiments. Here he began taking pictures. His book of 1871 ' Instructions in Photography ' (Click for photograph ) was a standard factory.

In 1874 he undertook an expedition to Egypt. Together with Warren de la Rue, who built the telescopic device, he made astronomical observations on the transit of Venus. Abney had contributed the emulsion and the developer liquid. They had over 2000 beautiful - made ​​recordings and were richer for the experience - but useless. Abney was able to convince his superiors to a "Survey" of Egypt, so that he there made ​​many recordings, which he then in 1876 in his book " Thebes and Its Five Greater Temples " published.

He left Chatham in 1877 and was a civilian employee of the department " Science and Art ". He quickly became one of the main characters in British photography.

Abney worked on the chemistry basics of photography, especially color photography. In addition, he has contributed to the multi-color printing, to color theory ( Abney 's law: The luminance of a solution obtained by additive color mixing color is equal to the sum of the luminances of the individual mixture components ) and color vision, as well as Astrophotography and Astrofotometrie.

Named after him Abney effect describes the appearing only in the human eye color change by admixture of white. Other perceptual psychological phenomena are after him and Wilhelm von Bezold summarized named as Bezold - Abney 's phenomenon.

1878-79 he developed emulsions for immediate imaging and infrared photography. He invented 1873 Ölumdruck, discovered in 1880 the suitability of hydroquinone as a photographic developing agent. Now it was possible to produce appropriate photo paper for prints.

In 1870, he joined the Photographic Society (later known as the Photographic Society of Great Britain, to this day as the Royal Photographic Society ) in which distinguished him in 1878 as the first with its Progress Medal (English for Progress Medal). In 1876 he was elected "Fellow" of the Royal Society, in 1882 awarded him the Rumford Medal. He was President of the Society 1892-1894, 1896 and 1903-1905. He was also President of the Royal Astronomical Society 1893-95 and 1895-97 President of the Physical Society of London.

In 1890, he was beaten for his contributions to the Knight.

On his initiative, a photographic collection in the South Kensington Museum was created, the later collection of the Science Museum was formed and the basis for the " National Museum of Photography " in Bradford.

Publications

  • Chemistry for Engineers. In 1870.
  • Instructions in Photography. In 1871.
  • Thebes and Its Five Greater Temples. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London, 1876.
  • W. de W. Abney, ER Festing: Intensity of Radiation through Turbid Media. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Volume 40, 1886, pp. 378-380. (Published by the Royal Society )
  • W. de W. Abney, E. R. Festing: Colour Photometry. Part III. In: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Volume 50, 1891-1892, pp. 369-372.
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