The Ascent of John Tyndall: Victorian Scientist, Mountaineer, and Public Intellectual

With this exhaustive and, at times, exhausting work, Jackson (The Correspondence of John Tyndall, editor), head of London’s Science Museum, attempts to revive appreciation for Victorian scientist John Tyndall (1822–1893). Unfortunately for Tyndall—and unlike some of his acquaintances, such as Charles Darwin—he has no singular accomplishment to recommend him. He was the first to posit a correct but incomplete answer to the question “Why is the sky blue?” and was one of the first scientists to find that atmospheric gases absorb radiation, but it fell to others to expand on these discoveries. Tyndall was also an avid mountain climber, which led him to a greater understanding of glaciers and many summers spent in the Alps. While these and other aspects of Tyndall’s career, such as his championing of germ theory, may be of interest to science buffs, Jackson spends too much time on minutiae. Page after page is devoted to the dinners Tyndall attended and even what was served, subjects and audience size at ongoing lecture series, and other quotidian details. Tyndall was certainly a major figure of his day, but Jackson’s biography is unlikely to persuade a modern audience of his continued importance. (July)