Benjamin Thompson - Early life in America

Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (in German: Reichsgraf von Rumford), (26 March 1753 - 21 August 1814), was an Anglo-American physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th century revolution in thermodynamics. Benjamin Thompson - Early life in America. Thompson was born in rural Woburn, Massachusetts, in America; his birthplace is preserved to this day as a museum. He was educated mainly at the village school, although he sometimes walked to Cambridg ...

Including:

• Benjamin Thompson - Early life in America
• Benjamin Thompson - Bavarian maturity
• Benjamin Thompson - Experiments on heat
• Benjamin Thompson - Inventions
• Benjamin Thompson - Later life
• Benjamin Thompson - Honours
• Benjamin Thompson - Notes
• Benjamin Thompson - Bibliography

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Thompson was born in rural Woburn, Massachusetts, in America; his birthplace is preserved to this day as a museum. He was educated mainly at the village school, although he sometimes walked to Cambridge with the older Loammi Baldwin to attend lectures by Professor John Winthrop at Harvard College. At the age of 13 was apprenticed to John Appleton, a merchant of nearby Salem. Thompson excelled at his trade and, coming in contact with refined and well educated people for the first time, adopted many of their characteristics, including an inter ...

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Benjamin Thompson, Benjamin Thompson - Early life in America, Benjamin Thompson - Bavarian maturity, Benjamin Thompson - Experiments on heat, Benjamin Thompson - Inventions, Benjamin Thompson - Later life, Benjamin Thompson - Honours, Benjamin Thompson - Notes, Benjamin Thompson - Bibliography

Read more here: » Benjamin Thompson: Encyclopedia II - Benjamin Thompson - Early life in America

In 1785, he moved to Bavaria where he became an aide-de-camp to the Elector Karl Theodor. He spent eleven years in Bavaria, reorganizing the army and establishing workhouses for the poor. During his work he also invented the Rumford Soup, a nutritious soup for the poor, and established the cultivation of the potato in Bavaria. Benjamin Thompson - Experiments on heat. His experiments on gunnery and explosives led to an interest in heat. He devised a method for measuring the specific heats of solids ...

See also:

Benjamin Thompson, Benjamin Thompson - Early life in America, Benjamin Thompson - Bavarian maturity, Benjamin Thompson - Experiments on heat, Benjamin Thompson - Inventions, Benjamin Thompson - Later life, Benjamin Thompson - Honours, Benjamin Thompson - Notes, Benjamin Thompson - Bibliography

Read more here: » Benjamin Thompson: Encyclopedia II - Benjamin Thompson - Bavarian maturity

After 1799, he divided his time between France and England. With Sir Joseph Banks, he established the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1799. The pair chose Sir Humphry Davy as the first lecturer. He endowed the Rumford medals of the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and endowed a professorship at Harvard University. In 1804, he married Marie-Anne Lavoisier, the widow of the great French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, his American wife having died since his emigration. They soon separated, but Thompson settled in Paris an ...

See also:

Benjamin Thompson, Benjamin Thompson - Early life in America, Benjamin Thompson - Bavarian maturity, Benjamin Thompson - Experiments on heat, Benjamin Thompson - Inventions, Benjamin Thompson - Later life, Benjamin Thompson - Honours, Benjamin Thompson - Notes, Benjamin Thompson - Bibliography

Read more here: » Benjamin Thompson: Encyclopedia II - Benjamin Thompson - Later life