Thomas Young: The Last Universal Scholar | Generated by AI
Thomas Young: The Last Man Who Knew Everything
Thomas Young (1773–1829) was a British polymath, physician, and natural philosopher whose extraordinary breadth of knowledge across science, medicine, linguistics, and more earned him the enduring nickname “the last man who knew everything.” This moniker, popularized in Andrew Robinson’s 2006 biography of the same title, reflects Young’s era as one of the final generalists before scientific disciplines became too specialized for any single person to master them all. Born into a Quaker family in Milverton, Somerset, England, as the eldest of ten children, Young displayed prodigious talent from childhood. By age 14, he had taught himself over a dozen languages, including Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Arabic, Persian, and Ethiopian Ge’ez. He pursued medicine, studying at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London (1792), the University of Edinburgh (1794), and the University of Göttingen, where he earned his MD in 1796. Financial independence came in 1797 via an inheritance, allowing him to practice as a physician in London from 1799. He married Eliza Maxwell in 1804 (they had no children) and died of asthma-related complications in 1829 at age 55. His Westminster Abbey epitaph praises his universal genius in advancing human learning.
Major Contributions
Young’s work spanned multiple fields, often published anonymously to safeguard his medical reputation.
Physics and Optics:
Young revived the wave theory of light, challenging Isaac Newton’s particle model. In 1801–1804, his famous double-slit experiment demonstrated interference patterns, proving light behaves as waves—a breakthrough that influenced later scientists like Fresnel, Maxwell, and Einstein. He coined terms like “energy” in its modern sense, formulated Young’s modulus (1807) for material elasticity (stress = E × strain), and developed theories on capillary action, leading to the Young–Laplace equation for surface tension. He also advanced tidal theory and musical tuning with Young temperament.
Medicine and Physiology:
A practicing physician at St George’s Hospital from 1811, Young pioneered eye science. In 1793, he explained accommodation (focusing) via lens curvature; in 1801, he first described astigmatism. His Young–Helmholtz theory (1800s) proposed three retinal receptors for color vision, foundational to modern trichromatic theory. He derived pulse wave speed formulas, authored texts on nosology and tuberculosis, and created Young’s rule for pediatric dosing: child’s dose = adult dose × (age / (age + 12)).
Linguistics and Egyptology:
A language savant, Young compared 400 tongues in an Encyclopædia Britannica article and coined “Indo-European languages” in 1813. In Egyptology, he partially deciphered the Rosetta Stone’s demotic script by 1814, identifying phonetic hieroglyphs and translating key sections—paving the way for Champollion’s full breakthrough, though their rivalry led to disputed credit. Young’s 1823 account detailed these advances.
Elected a Royal Society Fellow at 21 (1794), he lectured at the Royal Institution (1801–1803) and served as its foreign secretary (1802). His 1807 Lectures on Natural Philosophy synthesized his ideas across disciplines.
Legacy
Young’s eponymous concepts—modulus, slits, equation, theory—permeate physics, engineering, and medicine today. He anticipated relativity’s light speed constancy and influenced quantum mechanics. Einstein called him a “truly original genius.” The Thomas Young Centre in London honors his interdisciplinary spirit, reminding us of a time when one mind could illuminate nearly every corner of knowledge.
Thomas Young (scientist) - Wikipedia
The Last Man Who Knew Everything by Andrew Robinson