Sir James Dewar ( DEW-ər; 20 September 1842 – 27 March 1923) was a Scottish chemist and physicist. He is best known for his invention of the vacuum flask, which he used in conjunction for his research into the liquefaction of gases. He also studied atomic and molecular spectroscopy, working in these fields for more than twenty-five years. Dewar was nominated for the Nobel Prize eight times — five times in Physics and three times in Chemistry — but he was never so honoured.
Early life James Dewar was born in Kincardine, Perthshire (now in Fife) in 1842, the youngest of six boys of Ann Dewar and Thomas Dewar, a vintner. He was educated at Kincardine Parish School and then Dollar Academy, and his parents died when he was fifteen. He attended the University of Edinburgh where he studied chemistry under Lyon Playfair (later Baron Playfair), becoming Playfair's personal assistant. Later, Dewar also studied under August Kekulé at Ghent University.
Career
In 1875, Dewar was elected Jacksonian professor of natural experimental philosophy at the University of Cambridge, becoming a member of Peterhouse. He became a member of the Royal Institution and later, in 1877, replaced Dr. John Hall Gladstone as Fullerian Professor of Chemistry. Dewar was also the President of the Society of Chemical Industry from 1887-88, President of the Chemical Society in 1897 and the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1902, as well as serving on the Royal Commission established to examine London's water supply from 1893 to 1894 and the Committee on Explosives. While serving on the Committee on Explosives, he and Frederick Augustus Abel developed cordite, a smokeless gunpowder alternative. In 1867, Dewar described several chemical formulas for benzene, which were published in 1869. One of the formulae, which does not represent benzene correctly and was not advocated by Dewar, is sometimes still referred to as Dewar benzene. In 1869, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, after being nominated by his former mentor, Lyon Playfair.
His scientific work covers a wide field – his earlier papers cover topics including organic chemistry, hydrogen and its physical constants, high-temperature research, the temperature of the Sun and the electric spark, spectrophotometry, and the chemistry of the electric arc. With Professor J. G. McKendrick, of the University of Glasgow, he investigated the physiological action of light and examined the changes that take place in the electrical condition of the retina under its influence. With Professor G. D. Liveing, one of his colleagues at the University of Cambridge, he began in 1878 a long series of spectroscopic observations, the latter of which were devoted to the spectroscopic examination of various gaseous elements separated from atmospheric air under extremely cold conditions. He also joined Professor J. A. Fleming, of University College London, in the investigation of the electrical behaviour of substances cooled to very low temperatures. His name is most widely known in connection with his work on the liquefaction of the so-called permanent gases and his research at temperatures approaching absolute zero. His interest in this branch of physics and chemistry dates back at least as far as 1874, when he discussed the "Latent Heat of Liquid Gases" before the British Association. In 1878, he devoted a Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution to the then-recent work of Louis Paul Cailletet and Raoul Pictet, and exhibited for the first time in Great Britain the working of the Cailletet apparatus. Six years later, again at the Royal Institution, he described the research of Zygmunt Florenty Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski, and illustrated for the first time in public the liquefaction of oxygen and air. Soon afterward, he built a machine from which the liquefied gas could be drawn off through a valve for use as a cooling agent, before using the liquid oxygen in research work related to meteorites; about the same time, he also obtained oxygen in the solid state.
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