Scientists / Inventors

You can learn about science and how things work in many ways - by doing activities, investigating, observing and also by reading about certain things and certain people. This section has some information on some inventors.

Robert Boyle
Courtesy of National Science & Engineering Plaques Committee

Robert Boyle is a famous Irish scientist who discovered that sound...

a) cannot pass through a vacuum

b) needs a medium (solid, liquid or gas) to pass through

Marconi
Courtesy of National Science & Engineering Plaques Committee

Some Irish scientists became famous for their inventions for sending sounds over long distances. Perhaps the most famous being Gugliemo Marconi 1874-1937 (his mother was Anne Jameson of the Jameson whiskey family), who used idea of German scientist Heinrich Hertz on radio waves to bring the radio into practical use. Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909.

John Tyndall (1820-1893) of Carlow sent beams of light down a stream of water from a tap, and noticed that the light came out at the other end unaltered.  This observation eventually led to modern telecommunications where beams of light are sent along very thin glass fibres (fibre optic cables). Sound is converted into light at one end, and the light is converted back into sound at the other end.

Can you find out about any other scientist who was famous for something connected with sound?