John Tyndall

John Tyndall (1820–1893) was an Irish physicist and one of the great popularizers of Victorian science. Born in County Carlow, he worked as a surveyor before studying in Germany, and in 1853 became professor at the Royal Institution in London, later succeeding Michael Faraday as its superintendent. He studied diamagnetism, the absorption of heat by gases, showing the role of water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the scattering of light that explains the blue sky. A keen mountaineer, he wrote The Glaciers of the Alps and made notable first ascents in the Alps.