Misplaced Pages

Gerrit Moll

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Gerard Moll)
Gerrit Moll (left) shakes hands with John Dalton

Gerard "Gerrit" Moll LLD (1785–1838) was a Dutch scientist and mathematician. A polymath in his interests, he published in four languages.

Life

From a family background in Amsterdam of commerce, Moll was drawn towards science. His teacher at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam was Jean Henri van Swinden. He took up astronomy with Jan Frederik Keijser in 1801. In 1809 he was awarded a Candidaat degree by Leiden University; and in 1810 he went to Paris, where he studied under Delambre. Moll is noted for his later animus against "Napoleonic science", the tradition of the revolutionary period in France.

In 1812 Moll was appointed director at Utrecht Observatory, a position he then held for 26 years; and in 1815 professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Utrecht, receiving an honorary Ph.D. (under Johannes Theodorus Rossijn). He became member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1815.

During the "declinist" controversy in British science around 1830, Moll spoke in praise of the British tradition, against the trend of increasing professionalisation. A friend of Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday, he wrote a pamphlet On The Alleged Decline of Science in England (1831), which Faraday edited, in reply to Charles Babbage's On The Alleged Decline of Science in England (1830). In relation to claims that French scientists had tried to diminish the impact of Davy's work, Moll relayed unfounded allegations to Faraday.

Moll died of typhoid on 17 January 1838.

Works

Moll developed the electromagnet of William Sturgeon, publishing with priority over Joseph Henry.

Notes

  1. Lewis Pyenson (1989). Empire of Reason: Exact Sciences in Indonesia, 1840-1940. BRILL. p. 21. ISBN 978-90-04-08984-6.
  2. ^ Klaas Van Berkel; Albert Van Helden; L. C. Palm (1999). The History of Science in the Netherlands: Survey, Themes and Reference. BRILL. p. 531. ISBN 978-90-04-10006-0.
  3. Huibert J. Zuidervaart; Rob H. van Gent (2013). Between Rhetoric and Reality: Instrumental Practices at the Astronomical Observatory of the Amsterdam Society 'Felix Meritis', 1786-1889. Uitgeverij Verloren. p. 84. ISBN 978-90-8704-363-6.
  4. ^ Pieter C. van der Kruit (18 November 2014). Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn: Born Investigator of the Heavens. Springer. p. 29. ISBN 978-3-319-10876-6.
  5. ^ Frommert, Hartmut (2007). "Moll, Gerard". The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. p. 794. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_967. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0.
  6. Huibert J. Zuidervaart; Rob H. van Gent (2013). Between Rhetoric and Reality: Instrumental Practices at the Astronomical Observatory of the Amsterdam Society 'Felix Meritis', 1786-1889. Uitgeverij Verloren. p. 150. ISBN 978-90-8704-363-6.
  7. Fox, Robert (1973). "Scientific Enterprise and the Patronage of Research in France 1800-70". Minerva. 11 (4): 442–473. ISSN 0026-4695.
  8. "Gerard (Gerrit) Moll (1785 - 1838)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
  9. Richard Yeo (18 September 2003). Defining Science: William Whewell, Natural Knowledge and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain. Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-521-54116-9.
  10. Agassi, Joseph; Faraday, Young (1961). "An Unpublished Paper of the Young Faraday". Isis. 52 (1): 87–90. ISSN 0021-1753.
  11. David Knight; David M. Knight (1975). Sources for the History of Science, 1660-1914. CUP Archive. p. 85. GGKEY:07DR2AJ2N9B.
  12. Maury Klein (1 September 2010). The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-59691-834-4.
Categories: