Physicist, born in Somersetshire, of Quaker parents; studied medicine at home and abroad; renounced Quakerism, and began practice in London in 1800; was next year appointed professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution, 1802; made Secretary of the Royal Society, and was afterwards nominated for other important appointments; his principal work is a "Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts," published in 1807, in which he propounded the undulatory theory of light, and the principle of the interference of rays; the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt occupied much of his attention, and he is credited with having anticipated Champollion in discovering the key to them (1773-1829).
The Nuttall Encyclopædia: Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge[1] is a late 19th-century encyclopedia, edited by Rev. James Wood, first published in London in 1900 by Frederick Warne & Co Ltd.
WikipediaEditions were recorded for 1920, 1930, 1938 and 1956 and was still being sold in 1966. Editors included G. Elgie Christ and A. L. Hayden for 1930, Lawrence Hawkins Dawson for 1938 and C. M. Prior for 1956.[2]
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