John Joly
Encyclopedia
John Joly FRS
(1 November 1857 – 8 December 1933) was an Irish physicist, famous for his development of radiotherapy in the treatment of cancer
. He is also known for developing techniques to accurately estimate the age of a geological
period, based on radioactive elements present in mineral
s.
Rectory), Bracknagh
, County Offaly
, Ireland
. He was a second cousin of Charles Jasper Joly
, the astronomer. He entered Trinity College
, Dublin in 1876, graduating in Engineering in 1882 in first place with various special certificates in branches of engineering, at the same time obtaining a First Class Honours in modern literature. He worked as a demonstrator in Trinity's Engineering and Physics departments before succeeding William Johnson Sollas
in the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy in 1897, a position which he held until his death in 1933 in Dublin.
in 1881 while still a student, and was a frequent contributor of papers. His first scientific paper was published in 1883, on the use of meteorological instruments at a distance. During his career he wrote over 270 books and scientific papers.
On 17 May 1899 Joly read his paper, "An Estimate of the Geological Age of the Earth" to the Royal Dublin Society
. In it, he proposed to calculate the age of the earth from the accumulation of sodium
in the waters of the oceans. He calculated the rate at which the oceans should have accumulated sodium from erosion
processes, and determined that the oceans were about 80 to 100 million years old. The paper was quickly published, appearing 4 months later in the Society's Scientific Transactions. Although this method was later considered inaccurate and was consequently superseded, it radically modified the results of other methods in use at the time.
In 1903 he published an article in Nature
in which he discussed the possibility of using radium
to date the Earth and went on to study the radioactive content of the Earth's crust in order to formulate a theory of thermal cycles, and examined the radioactive constutuents of certain rocks as a means of calculating their age. Working in collaboration with Sir Ernest Rutherford
, he used radioactive decay in minerals to estimate, in 1913, that the beginning of the Devonian
period could not be less than 400 million years ago, an estimate which is in line with modern calculations.
Joly served as President of Section C (Geology) when the British Association for the Advancement of Science
which met in Dublin in 1908, during which he presented his paper "Uranium and Geology" an address to the society. This work described radioactive materials in rocks and their part in the generation of the Earth
's internal heat.
Along with his friend Henry Horatio Dixon
, Joly also put forward the cohesion-tension theory which is now thought to be the main mechanism for the upward movement of water in plants.
In 1914 he developed a method of extracting radium
and applied it in the treatment of cancer. As a Governor of Dr Steevens' Hospital
in Dublin, in collaboration with Walter Stevenson he devised radiotherapy methods and promoted the establishment by the Royal Dublin Society of the Irish Radium Institute where they pioneered the "Dublin method" of using a hollow needle for deep radiotherapy, a technique that later entered worldwide use. The Radium Institute also supplied capillary tubes containing radon
to hospitals for some years for use in the treatment of tumours.
for measuring light intensity, a meldometer for measuring the melting points of minerals, a differential steam calorimeter
for measuring specific heats and a constant-volume gas thermometer, all of which bear his name, together with one of the first color photographic processes
, the Joly Colour process
. It was the first successful process for producing color images from a single photographic plate
.
in 1911, the Royal Medal
of the Royal Society
of London in 1910, and the Murchison Medal
of the Geological Society of London
in 1923. He was also conferred honorary degrees by the National University of Ireland
, the University of Cambridge
, and the University of Michigan
. After his death, his friends subscribed the sum of £1,700 to set up a memorial fund which is still used to promote the annual Joly Memorial Lectures at the University of Dublin, which were inaugurated by Sir Ernest Rutherford
in 1935. He is also remembered by the Joly Geological Society, a student geological association established in 1960.
In 1930 Oliver Sheppard
was commissioned by Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Dublin Society
to make them copies of a bust of Joly.
In 1973 a crater
on Mars
was named in his honor.
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
(1 November 1857 – 8 December 1933) was an Irish physicist, famous for his development of radiotherapy in the treatment of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. He is also known for developing techniques to accurately estimate the age of a geological
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
period, based on radioactive elements present in mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
s.
Career
Joly was born in Holywood House (the Church of IrelandChurch of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
Rectory), Bracknagh
Bracknagh
Bracknagh or Bracnagh is a small village in County Offaly, Ireland. It is at the junction of the R442 and R419 regional roads, half way between Portarlington and Rathangan ....
, County Offaly
County Offaly
County Offaly is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Midlands Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Uí Failghe and was formerly known as King's County until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Offaly County Council is...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. He was a second cousin of Charles Jasper Joly
Charles Jasper Joly
Charles Jasper Joly was an Irish mathematician and astronomer who became Royal Astronomer of Ireland.-Life:...
, the astronomer. He entered Trinity College
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, Dublin in 1876, graduating in Engineering in 1882 in first place with various special certificates in branches of engineering, at the same time obtaining a First Class Honours in modern literature. He worked as a demonstrator in Trinity's Engineering and Physics departments before succeeding William Johnson Sollas
William Johnson Sollas
William Johnson Sollas FRS was a British geologist and anthropologist. After studying at the City of London School, the Royal College of Chemistry and the Royal School of Mines he matriculated to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded First Class Honours in geology...
in the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy in 1897, a position which he held until his death in 1933 in Dublin.
Scientific work
Joly joined the Royal Dublin SocietyRoyal Dublin Society
The Royal Dublin Society was founded on 25 June 1731 to "to promote and develop agriculture, arts, industry, and science in Ireland". The RDS is synonymous with its main premises in Ballsbridge in Dublin, Ireland...
in 1881 while still a student, and was a frequent contributor of papers. His first scientific paper was published in 1883, on the use of meteorological instruments at a distance. During his career he wrote over 270 books and scientific papers.
On 17 May 1899 Joly read his paper, "An Estimate of the Geological Age of the Earth" to the Royal Dublin Society
Royal Dublin Society
The Royal Dublin Society was founded on 25 June 1731 to "to promote and develop agriculture, arts, industry, and science in Ireland". The RDS is synonymous with its main premises in Ballsbridge in Dublin, Ireland...
. In it, he proposed to calculate the age of the earth from the accumulation of sodium
Sodium
Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals; its only stable isotope is 23Na. It is an abundant element that exists in numerous minerals, most commonly as sodium chloride...
in the waters of the oceans. He calculated the rate at which the oceans should have accumulated sodium from erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
processes, and determined that the oceans were about 80 to 100 million years old. The paper was quickly published, appearing 4 months later in the Society's Scientific Transactions. Although this method was later considered inaccurate and was consequently superseded, it radically modified the results of other methods in use at the time.
In 1903 he published an article in Nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
in which he discussed the possibility of using radium
Radium
Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...
to date the Earth and went on to study the radioactive content of the Earth's crust in order to formulate a theory of thermal cycles, and examined the radioactive constutuents of certain rocks as a means of calculating their age. Working in collaboration with Sir Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS was a New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics...
, he used radioactive decay in minerals to estimate, in 1913, that the beginning of the Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...
period could not be less than 400 million years ago, an estimate which is in line with modern calculations.
Joly served as President of Section C (Geology) when the British Association for the Advancement of Science
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
which met in Dublin in 1908, during which he presented his paper "Uranium and Geology" an address to the society. This work described radioactive materials in rocks and their part in the generation of the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's internal heat.
Along with his friend Henry Horatio Dixon
Henry Horatio Dixon
Henry Horatio Dixon was a plant biologist and professor at Trinity College Dublin. Along with John Joly, he put forward the cohesion-tension theory of water and mineral movement in plants....
, Joly also put forward the cohesion-tension theory which is now thought to be the main mechanism for the upward movement of water in plants.
In 1914 he developed a method of extracting radium
Radium
Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...
and applied it in the treatment of cancer. As a Governor of Dr Steevens' Hospital
Dr Steevens' Hospital
Dr Steevens' Hospital in Dublin was one of Ireland's most distinguished eighteenth-century medical establishments...
in Dublin, in collaboration with Walter Stevenson he devised radiotherapy methods and promoted the establishment by the Royal Dublin Society of the Irish Radium Institute where they pioneered the "Dublin method" of using a hollow needle for deep radiotherapy, a technique that later entered worldwide use. The Radium Institute also supplied capillary tubes containing radon
Radon
Radon is a chemical element with symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, occurring naturally as the decay product of uranium or thorium. Its most stable isotope, 222Rn, has a half-life of 3.8 days...
to hospitals for some years for use in the treatment of tumours.
Inventions
Joly also invented a photometerPhotometer
In its widest sense, a photometer is an instrument for measuring light intensity or optical properties of solutions or surfaces. Photometers are used to measure:*Illuminance*Irradiance*Light absorption*Scattering of light*Reflection of light*Fluorescence...
for measuring light intensity, a meldometer for measuring the melting points of minerals, a differential steam calorimeter
Calorimeter
A calorimeter is a device used for calorimetry, the science of measuring the heat of chemical reactions or physical changes as well as heat capacity. Differential scanning calorimeters, isothermal microcalorimeters, titration calorimeters and accelerated rate calorimeters are among the most common...
for measuring specific heats and a constant-volume gas thermometer, all of which bear his name, together with one of the first color photographic processes
Color photography
Color photography is photography that uses media capable of representing colors, which are traditionally produced chemically during the photographic processing phase...
, the Joly Colour process
Joly Color Screen
The Joly Color process is an early additive color photography process devised by Dublin physicist John Joly in 1894.-Description:Based on a method proposed in 1869 by Louis Ducos du Hauron in Les Couleurs en Photographie - Solution du Probleme, the Joly Color process used a glass photographic plate...
. It was the first successful process for producing color images from a single photographic plate
Photographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
.
Honours
Joly was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1892, was awarded the Boyle Medal of the Royal Dublin SocietyRoyal Dublin Society
The Royal Dublin Society was founded on 25 June 1731 to "to promote and develop agriculture, arts, industry, and science in Ireland". The RDS is synonymous with its main premises in Ballsbridge in Dublin, Ireland...
in 1911, the Royal Medal
Royal Medal
The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal, is a silver-gilt medal awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences" made within the Commonwealth of...
of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
of London in 1910, and the Murchison Medal
Murchison Medal
An award established by Roderick Murchison, who died in 1871. One of the closing public acts of Murchison’s life was the founding of a chair of geology and mineralogy in the University of Edinburgh. Under his will there was established the Murchison Medal and geological fund to be awarded annually...
of the Geological Society of London
Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...
in 1923. He was also conferred honorary degrees by the National University of Ireland
National University of Ireland
The National University of Ireland , , is a federal university system of constituent universities, previously called constituent colleges, and recognised colleges set up under the Irish Universities Act, 1908, and significantly amended by the Universities Act, 1997.The constituent universities are...
, the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, and the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. After his death, his friends subscribed the sum of £1,700 to set up a memorial fund which is still used to promote the annual Joly Memorial Lectures at the University of Dublin, which were inaugurated by Sir Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS was a New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics...
in 1935. He is also remembered by the Joly Geological Society, a student geological association established in 1960.
In 1930 Oliver Sheppard
Oliver Sheppard
Oliver Sheppard RHA was an Irish sculptor, most famous for his 1911 bronze statue of the mythical Cuchullain dying in battle.-Family:...
was commissioned by Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Dublin Society
Royal Dublin Society
The Royal Dublin Society was founded on 25 June 1731 to "to promote and develop agriculture, arts, industry, and science in Ireland". The RDS is synonymous with its main premises in Ballsbridge in Dublin, Ireland...
to make them copies of a bust of Joly.
In 1973 a crater
Impact crater
In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
was named in his honor.
External links
- The parrot, the pince-nez and the pleochroic halo at www.europhysicsnews.com
- Contribution of Offaly Writers to Irish Literature - Ancestral Research, Family History, Laois, Offaly, Genealogy at www.irishmidlandsancestry.com