英语词汇davy lamp的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

Davy lamp; Davy Medal; davite. Sir Humphry Davy, who “abominated gravy” (see clerihew), invented the Davy lamp and has the mineral ore davite named in his honor. The great English chemist (1778–1829) invented the safety lamp for min- ers in 1816; largely outmoded today, it is a flame enclosed in a fine-meshed wire cage that prevents high heat from escaping and has saved thousands of lives that would have been lost due to the igniting of explosive gases. Like Madame Curie, the largely self-educated genius refused to take out a patent for his discovery. Among his myriad scientific achievements were his electrical theory of chemical affinity, said to be 100 years before its time; the discovery of the anesthetic effect of “laughing gas”; the isolation of the alkali metals potassium and sodium; the isolation of calcium, barium, strontium, magnesium, and bo- ron; and the discovery that chlorine is an element. Davy was presented with an expensive silver dinner service by grateful coal mine owners for his invention of the Davy lamp. In his will he decreed that it be melted down and sold, interest from the proceeds to be used to establish the Davy Medal of the Royal Society, “given annually for the most important discovery in chemistry made in Europe or Anglo-America.”

词汇	davy lamp
词源	Davy lamp; Davy Medal; davite. Sir Humphry Davy, who “abominated gravy” (see clerihew), invented the Davy lamp and has the mineral ore davite named in his honor. The great English chemist (1778–1829) invented the safety lamp for min- ers in 1816; largely outmoded today, it is a flame enclosed in a fine-meshed wire cage that prevents high heat from escaping and has saved thousands of lives that would have been lost due to the igniting of explosive gases. Like Madame Curie, the largely self-educated genius refused to take out a patent for his discovery. Among his myriad scientific achievements were his electrical theory of chemical affinity, said to be 100 years before its time; the discovery of the anesthetic effect of “laughing gas”; the isolation of the alkali metals potassium and sodium; the isolation of calcium, barium, strontium, magnesium, and bo- ron; and the discovery that chlorine is an element. Davy was presented with an expensive silver dinner service by grateful coal mine owners for his invention of the Davy lamp. In his will he decreed that it be melted down and sold, interest from the proceeds to be used to establish the Davy Medal of the Royal Society, “given annually for the most important discovery in chemistry made in Europe or Anglo-America.”
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