He is famous for discovering the elements of the periodic table, inventing a lamp that would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of miners in 1815, and for being an electrochemical pioneer.
But what is currently exciting academics is the unpublished poem by British chemist Sir Humphry Davy and the intriguing connections between his poems and his scientific discoveries.
Researchers at Lancaster University discovered that Davy secretly wrote hundreds of poems in notebooks in which he recorded his groundbreaking electrochemical experiments, discoveries and explanations.
Almost all of these poems, including the one published in the newspaper on Sunday Observer This never-before-read book offers fascinating insights into the inner workings of one of the most extraordinary scientific minds of the 19th century.
“Poetry is everywhere,” says Sharon Ruston, a professor of English at the University of Lancaster who, with the help of nine academics and nearly 3,500 volunteers from around the world, has spent the last four years transcribing 11,417 pages of Davy’s numerous 200-year-old books. old notebooks.
“You get a real sense of him and his thought processes because he’s trying to find his way through things.”
Ruston, a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and poet laureate Robert Southey, said Davy was born “before he had the idea that there was a dividing line between art and science” and published only a few poems in his lifetime. He was praised by his famous friends.
But the notebooks reveal that his devotion to his craft was so strong that lines of poetry “occasionally jostle for space with descriptions of chemical discoveries” and are “found on pages where you can tell from the condition of the pages that he is doing chemical experiments”.
These pages, torn, burnt, or with various stains from the work he was working on, suggest that Davy even wrote poetry in his laboratory, where he was pioneering the field of electrolysis.
Ruston said: “He writes about nitrous oxide or galvanism. But there are also lines of poetry. For him, these two things happen at the same time. “He’s trying to understand what the world is and how to understand the world.”
One of the most exciting finds is a poem written by Davy about the ruins he saw in Greece and Rome during his continental tour between 1813 and 1815, interspersed with scientific notes on the materials and sculptures used in the ruins.
“This tour is a pretty important moment in Davy’s life,” Ruston said.
During this European tour with his protégé Michael Faraday, who would go on to invent the first electric generator, Davy proved the fundamental nature of iodine and that diamonds were made of carbon.
He said: “It blew their minds because you start to understand that a substance can have very different forms. So Davy has a real worldview; there is nothing in the world that can be created or destroyed. Everything we have is around us but constantly and very slowly.” somehow it transforms into new forms.” Ruston sees a “symbiotic relationship” between Davy’s science and his poetry. “They work with each other.”
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For example, he was writing about the chemical reasons why leaves change color, and a few pages later he wrote a poem about the color of leaves. Ruston said he thought and wrote about his ideas: “Both ways: poetry and science. In his poetry you can see his scientific knowledge, in his science his poetic language, his persuasive rhetoric and his ability to express himself.”
Mark Miodownik, professor of materials and society at University College London, said the discovery of Davy’s poems was important because it showed: “You cannot be a great scientist and not be a creative person. “The idea that the creative industries are only for the arts and humanities is a modern misconception.”
Poetry was a special part of Davy’s creative process. “I think he couldn’t control himself. He was so full of wonder and wonder that he had to do this; things were going on in his head and he had to get them out,” Miodownik said.
The notebooks also contain doodle-like drawings of landscapes and faces, notes on purchasing candlesticks, and other mundane matters. “We have pages where he actually isolated potassium using electrolysis. But in the middle of that, he mentioned this person and his address,” Ruston said.
His team discovered that this was a reference to a tailor. “We think he’s thinking about how to announce his amazing discovery to the Royal Society, and he’ll need a new suit to do that,” he said.
One of the first published poems found in Davy’s notebooks
You are great monuments to the destiny of mankind;
This comes across as a moral lesson to us.
More powerful and impressive than the story
Taught by the wise and wrapped in heavy volumes.
Raising and satisfying a temple
Imperial pride and luxury. World
Wrecked while teaching a million slaves to lift the pole
Designed for barbaric sports. Which blood?
The human being was shed. lord of the world
Image of eternal glory
Torn to pieces by the teeth of a cruel beast
The shelf was brought from Egypt.
Ancient Greece was stripped of all its gods
Their temples were destroyed.
And the gods that Phidias framed
They were brought to the capital in captivity
Now all that’s left are pillars and broken shafts
A pile of ruins. Witness those huge walls
Where a hundred thousand voices once greeted
Dying gladiator; silence reigns
And terrible loneliness – yet a soul lives on
Inside these ruins.