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James Prescot Joule
Scientist 1818 - 1889
Joule was born in New Bailey
Street, Salford, on Christmas Eve 1818 to Benjamin Jowle and
Alice Prescott. The son of a local brewer, he was a delicate
child. He was largely self taught and in his teens was taught
by the famous Manchester scientist, John Dalton. About half of
Professor Joule's 71 years were spent in Salford; at one time
he lived at Cliff Point, Lower Broughton. He lived in what is
now Joule House, Acton Square, for the brief seven years of his
marriage.
In his youth he tried to build
a perpetual motion machine which he developed in later life to
elucidate the mysteries of friction, energy and heat. He worked
out the theories on which modern mechanical development is based.
In 1837 he published the Annals of Electricity describing his
experiments and discoveries in electro-magnetism. He was a scientist
of some repute who established the principle of the mechanical
equivalent of heat and his name was given to the unit of work,
the joule. Elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1850, he
revolutionised physics and a crater on the moon was named after
him in 1970.
The siting of Salford University
was appropriately opposite Acton Square, where once lived the
city's greatest scientist. |
