Humphry Davy

Sir Humphry Davy was a charismatic Cornish chemist, inventor, and poet whose electrifying public lectures at the Royal Institution in London made science a fashionable sensation. As a young man at Thomas Beddoes's Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, Davy experimented on himself with various gases, discovering the exhilarating anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide ('laughing gas').

Harnessing the immense electric power of Alessandro Volta's newly invented voltaic pile, Davy pioneered the field of electrochemical isolation. In 1807, by passing electric currents through molten potash and soda, he discovered and isolated elemental potassium and sodium. In quick succession, he isolated calcium, magnesium, strontium, barium, and boron, and proved that chlorine is a unique chemical element, not an oxygen compound. In 1815, in response to horrific coal mine explosions, he invented the flame-arresting Davy lamp, saving countless miners' lives. Asked later in life to name his greatest discovery, Davy replied: 'Michael Faraday.'