Talk:Humphry Davy

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	On 15 March 2008, Humphry Davy was linked from BBC News, a high-traffic website. All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

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Contents 1 Content 2 Spelling 3 Comments 4 Questions 5 Clerihew 6 The first sentence 7 Punctuation query 8 Two sentences 9 Expansion 10 Chemistry

[edit] Content

Since most chemists would award credit for aluminum's (aluminium's) discovery to someone other than Davy, I'm editing the article accordingly. I love Cornwall, but I don't think that will influence professional opinion. -- Astrochemist 20:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

I went Googling and I can safely say I've never seen a name incorrectly spelled so often in my life. Well, except Edmund-Edmond Halley, but that was because Halley spelled it both ways. The definitive sources all gow with Humphry-no-E, though. Good eyes. -- Paul Drye

I went to the Humphry (without an 'e') Davy (without an 'e') Grammar (without and 'e') School so I don't usually make the 'Humphrey' mistake. I will try and get a nice picture of his statue when I am next down at Penzance in a few weeks.ChrisAngove 22:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

The section called Biography seems to jump in on the middle of Davy's life. Just a comment. -- 02:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that much more work on the content is needed. Today I added some names of books as well as some external links, but I'm afraid I don't have much time to develop the content. The references would make a good start for anyone who does. - Astrochemist 21:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

No kidding. I count about two hundred words for his entire life before before his retirement. No mention at all of his involvement in literature as an editor, either. Mind you, there used to be a lot more, but someone seems to have considered that superfluous and edited it out of the article. I'll insert it from the old copy of the article that had in my reference notes. HollyI 15:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

"Davy became known due to his experiences with the physiological action of some gases." --do you mean experiments with? --Koyaanis Qatsi

Davy had his friends over to do the experiments with them. They were under the influence.

"Davy became well known owing to his experiences with the physiological action of some gases" What is that supposed to say? --Floog

• Sorry, didn't bother reading above, fixed what it said on the actual page.--Floog

[edit] Clerihew

Is anyone interested in inserting the E.C. Bentley clerihew regarding Davy into the text? It reads;

• Sir Humphry Davy,
• Detested gravy.
• He lived on the odium
• Of discovering Sodium

Obviously, the gravy comment will need researching.LessHeard vanU 23:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The old version of the page had it

Sir Humphry Davy Abominated gravy. He lived in the odium Of discovering sodium.� which is more likely correct, since it has better meter and uses the proper preposition for "odium". I haven't been able to hunt down his dining preferences, though. HollyI 15:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The first sentence

I've reverted this article to something like what has been in it for the past year, pending discussion. (There has been none so far.) I would hate to see this article turn into the sort of thing that Nicholas Copernicus's page has become, with near-constant arguing over the person's nationality as opposed to the hard work of contributing material on the individual's life, work, and influence. I don't see a nationality debate with the articles on Cornishmen John Couch Adams, Richard Trevithick, John Davy (chemist), Edmund Davy, or Robert Were Fox the Younger (the last was a geologist contemporary and countryman of Davy). I'm not biased toward using English, British, or whatever, but "Cornish" alone might not be understood by some readers outside the UK, and would not be in line with current Wikipedia practice. Feel free to correct me (with verification please) if I'm wrong. Can some of the regular contributor's to this Davy article weigh in on this subject, one way or the other? - Astrochemist (talk) 18:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh brother was I wrong about Richard Trevithick. His talk page is loaded with nationality debates. I hope those can be avoided here. - Astrochemist (talk) 18:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I quite agree that there are usually more interesting things to know than a person's country of birth. But such facts are often not inconsequential, even if history has re-drawn the national boundaries many times over. If I were Cornish, however, and I suspected that this term of origin "might not be understood by some readers outside the UK" I'd certainly want to keep it in as way of educating those very readers! One beauty of Wikipedia is that one can click on as many or as few links as one likes or needs. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuation query

Should the opening read "... Davy, FRS" or " ... Davy FRS" or something different? Several variations now exist in Wikipedia articles on British scientists. Anyone have the definitive answer? It would be nice to have uniformity. - I'm leaving a similar comment on the James Joule talk page. Astrochemist (talk) 13:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

From a swift perusal of the RS website, it appears that they do not use a comma (e.g. Sir Richard Attenborough FRS). DuncanHill (talk) 15:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In my own experince I have never seen any punctuation between a surname and additional letters denoting award(s), or even between letters. What does Debrett's say?Martinevans123 (talk) 18:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Is that Debrett's or Debretts? LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Debrett's, of course :) DuncanHill (talk) 21:18, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

and how about Gowers' Fowler's? (that's Gowers GCB GBE, of course) haha Martinevans123 (talk) 21:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In my files I have one article titled "William Prout, M.D., F.R.S. Physician and Chemist" from Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London (1970) and an article titled "Professor John Norman Collie, F.R.S." from The Geographical Journal (1942, Royal Geographical Society). Wikipedia's page for Winston Churchill has "Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC ...", but his brother is simply "Churchill DSO TD". -- My personal preference is what has already been expressed by others, no punctuation before or within "FRS". Wikipedia's feature article on Isaac Newton avoids commas as, from what I can gather, do most other Wikipedia articles on scientists. -- Thanks for the responses! -- Astrochemist (talk) 14:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two sentences

I changed the opening sentence slightly. I don't recall seeing Davy described as a physicist, and certainly his work would (today) be much more closely identified with chemistry than physics. Of course, this is largely for the modern reader as these scientific distinctions were much less defined in Davy's time. -- I considered changing, but did not alter, the third sentence, because I wonder if the Davy lamp "proved a boon to miners" in Davy's own time. My recollection is that more miners died after Davy's invention because the lamp encouraged them to go deeper and so forth. However, I have no verification at hand. -- Astrochemist (talk) 13:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The ODNB calls him a chemist and inventor, I think it's fair enough not to call him a phycisist here. The article needs quite a lot of expansion IMO, will try to do something on it presently. DuncanHill (talk) 14:05, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Checking the Davy Lamp article, I discovered that the Christopher Lawrence reference wasn't visible, so few of us had verification to hand! The lamp (along with the Geordie lamp provided some protection from asphyxiation as well as from explosion. So it was also good news for canaries. But it meant that starving miners could now feel safe in still unsafe seams. The popularity of tje Davy lamp suggests it was more of a boon to mine owners. While gas could kill one miner quickly and quiety, an explosion could easily bring a costly halt to production for days or weeks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

You guys are putting me to shame with your speed! Page 120 of Hartley's short biography of Davy has a passage from a parliamentary committee in 1835 concerning the lamp. The passage gives numbers showing a 20% increase in deaths, but claims that the quantity of coal mined also increased during the same time period. Unfortunately, Hartley doesn't give specific references. -- By the way, I agree with the above comments about "chemist and inventor" and about mine owners. Should changes be made to the opening paragraph? - Astrochemist (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I've made the change to "chemist and inventor". DuncanHill (talk) 17:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Knight (1992) suggests that the two main reasons why "the number of disasters did not decline in the years after the lamp was invented", were lamp unreliability (mainly caused by breaks in the gauze and coal dust clogging) and the intransigence of the mine owners, who publicly lauded Davy's invention but who were reluctant to translate their enthuiasm into saftey investment. Deaths compared to amount of coal mined did fall, perhaps because mine employment rates were still increasing and improved mining technology also allowed an increase in per capita production rate.Martinevans123 (talk) 17:05, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

I've hugely expanded the "Early life" section, with public domain text from the old DNB. It could do with editing for style etc, so please do feel free to get stuck in! DuncanHill (talk) 16:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chemistry

I have edited the article to bring some order into his career, and also mention his work in rather more detail. The article seems to have been written by an historian with no chemical knowledge whatsoever. Peterlewis (talk) 21:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks - a lot of the text did come from the old DNB, which as a chemical text leaves a lot to be desired! DuncanHill (talk) 21:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)