Thomas Young (13 June 1773 – 10 May 1829) was a British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology. He was instrumental in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, specifically the Rosetta Stone. Young's work influenced that of William Herschel, Hermann von Helmholtz, James Clerk Maxwell, and Albert Einstein. Young is credited with establishing Christiaan Huygens' wave theory of light, in contrast to the corpuscular theory of Isaac Newton. Young's work was subsequently supported by the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel.
Personal life Young belonged to a Quaker family of Milverton, Somerset, where he was born in 1773, the eldest of 10 children. By the age of 14, Young had learned Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Syriac, Samaritan Hebrew, Arabic, Biblical Aramaic, Persian, Turkish, and Ge'ez. Young began to study medicine in London at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1792, moved to the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1794, and a year later went to Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany, where he obtained the degree of doctor of medicine in 1796 from the University of Göttingen. In 1797 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In the same year, he inherited the estate of his grand-uncle, Richard Brocklesby, which made him financially independent, and in 1799 he established himself as a physician at 48 Welbeck Street, London (now recorded with a blue plaque). Young published many of his first academic articles anonymously to protect his reputation as a physician. In 1801, Young was appointed professor of natural philosophy (mainly physics) at the Royal Institution. In two years, he delivered 91 lectures. In 1802, he was appointed foreign secretary of the Royal Society, of which he had been elected a fellow in 1794. He resigned his professorship in 1803, fearing that its duties would interfere with his medical practice. His lectures were published in 1807 in the Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and contain a number of anticipations of later theories. In 1811, Young became physician to St George's Hospital and, in 1814, he served on a committee appointed to consider the dangers involved in the general introduction of gas for lighting into London. In 1816, he was secretary of a commission charged with ascertaining the precise length of the seconds pendulum (the length of a pendulum whose period is exactly two seconds), and in 1818 he became secretary to the Board of Longitude and superintendent of the HM Nautical Almanac Office. Young was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822. A few years before his death he became interested in life insurance, and in 1827 he was chosen as one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Sciences. In the same year, he became a first class corresponding member, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. In 1828, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1804, Young married Eliza Maxwell. They had no children. Young died in his 56th year in London on 10 May 1829, having suffered recurrent attacks of "asthma". His autopsy revealed atherosclerosis of the aorta. His body was buried in the graveyard of St Giles' Church at Farnborough, in the county of Kent. Westminster Abbey houses a white marble tablet in memory of Young, bearing an epitaph by Hudson Gurney:
Sacred to the memory of Thomas Young, M.D., Fellow and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society Member of the National Institute of France; a man alike eminent in almost every department of human learning. Patient of unintermitted labour, endowed with the faculty of intuitive perception, who, bringing an equal mastery to the most abstruse investigations of letters and of science, first established the undulatory theory of light, and first penetrated the obscurity which had veiled for ages the hieroglyphs of Egypt. Endeared to his friends by his domestic virtues, honoured by the World for his unrivalled acquirements, he died in the hopes of the Resurrection of the just. —Born at Milverton, in Somersetshire, 13 June 1773. Died in Park Square, London, 10 May 1829, in the 56th year of his age. Young tutored Hudson Gurney as a child, and they remained lifelong friends. Gurney commissioned a portrait of Young by Thomas Lawrence, and there have been many copies based on this original painting. Young was highly regarded by his friends and colleagues. He was said never to impose his knowledge, but if asked, was able to answer even the most difficult scientific question with ease. Although very learned, he had a reputation for sometimes having difficulty communicating his knowledge. It was said by one of his contemporaries that, "His words were not those in familiar use, and the arrangement of his ideas seldom the same as those he conversed with. He was therefore worse calculated than any man I ever knew for the communication of knowledge."
Religious views Though he sometimes dealt with religious topics of history in Egypt and wrote about the history of Christianity in Nubia, not much is known about Young's personal religious views. In George Peacock's account, Young never spoke to him about morals, metaphysics, or religion, though according to Young's wife, his attitudes showed that "his Quaker upbringing had strongly influenced his religious practices." Authoritative sources have described Young in terms of a cultural Christian Quaker. Hudson Gurney informed that before his marriage, Young had to join the Church of England, and was baptized later. Gurney stated that Young "retained a good deal of his old creed, and carried to his scriptural studies his habit of inquisition of languages and manners," rather than the habit of proselytism. Yet, the day before his death, Young participated in religious sacraments; as reported in David Brewster's Edinburgh Journal of Science:
"After some information concerning his affairs, and some instructions concerning the hierographical papers in his hands, he said that, perfectly aware of his situation, he had taken the sacraments of the church on the day preceding. His religious sentiments were by himself stated to be liberal, though orthodox. He had extensively studied the Scriptures, of which the precepts were deeply impressed upon his mind from his earliest years; and he evidenced the faith which he professed; in an unbending course of usefulness and rectitude."
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