John Tyndall – Father of Fibre Optics

County Carlow has produced a number of important individuals who made a significant contribution to the time in which they lived. John Tyndall was not only one such person but his works and discoveries still have an impact to this day.

Born in 1820 in the picturesque village of Leighlinbridge he received his early education from a well know local teacher John Conwill. Such was Conwill’s influence on Tyndall they maintained correspondence between each other until Conwill died. John had from an early age shown an interest in mathematics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upon leaving school he joined the Ordnance Survey working for them both here in Ireland and in Britain. In his twenties after a period of working with a railway firm he accepted his first teaching post in Queenswood College in Hampshire and thus began over thirty years of research which resulted in him founding three new sciences, infra-red spectroscopy, rephalometry and bacteriology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Black Castle and Bridge over the River Barrow in Leighlinbridge. Photo Carlow County Museum.

During the 1860s with his experimental work he was able to measure the absorption and emissions of gases and vapours, thus opening the debate on the greenhouse effect. His further studies demonstrated why the sky is blue as a result of photochemical reactions producing scattered visible light in particular blue and is called “Tyndall Blue”.

In the early 1870s he worked with Louis Pasteur in proving Louis’s germ theory, in fact what resulted was a method of sterilisation that became know as Tyndallisation. Today this close connection is remembered and maintained with the Town Twinning of Carlow Town with Dole, France the home of Loius Pasteur in 1992.

But he is probably best remembered for his 1850s invention the Light Pipe, the basis of Fibre Optics. The modern day version of his Light Pipe is the gastroscope which enables the internal observations of the stomach of a patient without the use of open surgery.

He has many other practical inventions and improvements to his name including the gas mask, fireman’s respirator, infra-red spectrometer and particle size analiser and the fog horn.

In sport like science he excelled and since he spent considerable periods in Switzerland what better sport to excel in than mountaineering. He is considered one of the founders of modern mountaineering and climbed the major peaks in the Alps and he is particularly known for his pioneering sole ascents.

In 1893 he died after his wife accidentally administered him an overdose of chloral which he had been taking in alternate with magnesia to help with his isomnia.

John Tyndall , FRS truly a man of world science.