As part of the Great Britain lands, Ireland shares their cultures as well as their knowledge. Meet some of the Ireland incredible people (according to the All about History Magazine) who dedicated their lives to science and engineering, helping to shape the history of Ireland, and the world.
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| John Philip Holland |
John Philip Holland, an engineer (1840-1914), is the son of a coastguard in the seaside town of Liscannor. It was only natural that John Philip Holland would develop an obsession with sea travel at an early age. When he was just 18, he became convinced that the future of naval warfare was underwater, and drew up his first plans for a submarine. Several redesigns later, Holland’s No.6 craft became the first sub to be used by the US Navy. His pioneering use of electrical battery power, rather than petrol motors, secured his legacy as the “father of the modern submarine”.
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| Lousi Brennan |
Louis Brennan, an engineer (1852-1932), is a mechanical engineer. His famous invention was actually the missiles engineering, and he was recognized globally as the person that understood the practical guided missiles. After pulling the thread he realised how to propel the weapon at great speed, and as a result, his invention gave him a handsome reward from the British Government during the world ward. However, another invention that he created gave him punishment from the British Government, which was led by Churchill at that time. He created a prototype gyroscopic monorail in his garden although heralded by many to be the future of travel due to the unsafely aspects.
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| Robert Boyle |
Robert Boyle. He is one of the greatest minds that Ireland had who lived from 1627 to 1691. He was more interested in observing nature at work rather than theorising in the office. He was the first prominent scientist to perform controlled experiments, working in many area including physics, medicine and earth sciences. His most famous work however, was in chemistry, as he invented the vacuum pump, defined the modern idea of a chemical element, and formed Boyle’s Law determining the relationship between pressure and gas.
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| Sir William Thomson aka Lord Kelvin |
Sir William Thomson is a mathematical physicist who lived from 1824 to 1907. During his 53-year stint as a professor at the University of Glasgow, if this person was not ennobled as a lord, then nobodies would have known him. Born is the city of Belfast, William Thomson was ennobled as Lord Kelvin that has understanding in heat and energy. Yap, he is the man behind the decision of using Kelvin degree for experiments. He became the first to determine the value of absolute zero, the temperature at which all atoms stop moving, and proposed an absolute temperature scale, now it is called as the Kelvin scale. His contribution to science did not stop there. He also worked on the installation of telegraph cables beneath the Atlantic, earning him a knighthood, and also developed a highly accurate marine compass and depth-measuring equipment, improving navigation and safety at sea.
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| Ernest Walton |
The last person is
Ernest Walton who is a physicist (1903-1995). In 1932, using an unremarkable looking contraption made from an upturned, lead-lined tea-chest, Ernest Walton and his colleague John Cockroft achieved one of the most remarkable accomplishments in physics; splitting the atom. By accelerating a stream of hydrogen atoms into a lithium atom, they split it into two atoms of helium, paving the way for the enormous atom-smashing machines, such as the Large Hadron Collider, being used to answer physics’ most important questions today.
