托马斯·杨Thomas Young

托马斯·杨的父母是老杨，一位布商和银行家，以及Sarah Davis，他们是[11]：-

……略低于而非高于中等生活水平。

在11中杨写道，他的父亲：——

……顺应了当时的商业潮流，成为了一名货币制造商：他一度在投机中非常成功：然而，尽管他是一个极其正直的人，最终却因土地财产价值普遍下跌所带来的毁灭性后果而陷入困境，这对该国的银行家们是致命的打击。

杨是这个贵格会家庭十个孩子中的长子，但出生后不久，他便由母亲的父亲Robert Davis在距离米尔弗顿约15英里的迈恩黑德抚养长大。

作为一个杨男孩，他觉得学校并不十分令人振奋。大约四岁时，他上了乡村学校，不到六岁便被送到一位牧师那里[11]：——

……此人既无才能也无脾气把任何东西教好。

随后他花了十八个月在布里斯托尔附近的一所寄宿学校就读，但主要还是自学，用不到老师所花时间一半就学完了指定课本。1782年，他进入多塞特郡克朗普顿的一所学校，这所学校更适合一位少年天才，因为学生有更多自由按自己的进度学习。对杨来说，这个进度非常快，因为他无疑是个神童。到1786年离开这所学校时，他已通晓多种语言，包括古希腊语、拉丁语和希伯来语，以及法语和意大利语。他还在牛顿物理学方面打下了良好基础，学习了光学，并在学校一位导师的帮助下制作了几件仪器。离开学校后，他对东方语言的热情持续不减，并开始学习阿拉伯语、波斯语、迦勒底语、叙利亚语和撒马利亚语。

尽管只有十三岁，杨现在成为希尔达·菲比·哈德森 Gurney的导师，后者是弗洛伦斯·南丁格尔·大卫 Barcley的十二岁孙子，住在赫特福德郡Ware附近的一栋乡间别墅里。杨在乡间别墅或Barcley的伦敦家中工作了五年，直到1792年。他借此机会自学数学，阅读欧几里得的Elements和艾萨克·牛顿的著作。他还阅读其他科学书籍，以及历史和语言书籍。1792年秋天，他搬到伦敦开始学习医学。除了在Hunterian学校听课，他还注册为St Bartholomew's Hospital的学生。在解剖牛眼的要求下，他开始发展一种眼睛调节理论。他在1793年5月30日向伦敦皇家学会宣读的Observations on vision中发表了他的理论。杨于1794年6月19日当选为皇家学会会士。

杨继续他的医学训练，于1794年进入爱丁堡大学。作为贵格会教徒，他不能在牛津或剑桥学习，因此在英国境内，他只能从苏格兰的大学获得学位。学习一年后，他前往哥廷根大学，于1795年10月抵达那里。提交学位论文后，杨于1796年4月30日参加了口试并通过。该学位论文利用了杨在解剖学、语言和声音方面的专长。他于7月下旬离开哥廷根，访问了布伦瑞克、哥达、魏玛、耶拿、莱比锡、德累斯顿和柏林，然后于1797年2月返回英国。然而，他发现内科医师学院规定的变更要求在获得行医资格前需在同一所大学学习两年。因此，他前往剑桥大学伊曼纽尔学院，但在这样做之前，他不得不离开贵格会并宣布自己是英格兰教会成员。他觉得这并不困难，因为他一直在稳步远离严格的贵格会规则，在爱丁堡时参加舞会和剧院。

尽管注册了医学课程，杨并没有在剑桥学习医学，因为他觉得自己对这门学科已经了解得足够多。他反而独自工作，学习更多物理学，以便追求源自他在哥廷根学位论文的兴趣。他不大尊重剑桥的数学家，写道：

我羞愧地发现，四十年来外国数学家们在科学的更高分支上已远远超过英国人。

剑桥人对杨也不以为然。一位导师写道（见[7]）：

他很少发表意见，从不主动提出意见。他从不像其他博学的博士那样发号施令，或说出……值得记住的格言。事实上，像大多数数学家一样，……他似乎从不抽象地思考。一个哲学事实、一项困难的计算、一件精巧的仪器，或一项新发明，都会引起他的注意……

1797年12月13日，杨的叔祖父去世，留给他伦敦的住宅和一大笔钱，使杨在经济上有了保障。1800年1月，他在皇家学会宣读了论文Sound and light，1800年11月又宣读了另一篇论文On the mechanism of the eye。这第二篇论文包含了眼睛调节过程的更多细节，并首次测量了散光。1801年末，他又向皇家学会宣读了另一篇论文On the theory of light and colours，并于次年发表。这篇论文提出了三色视觉理论，以解释眼睛如何辨别颜色。同样在1801年，杨卖掉了叔祖父的房子，在韦尔贝克街买了一栋新房子。搬进去后不久，有人邀请他到皇家学院讲课。他接受了邀请，并努力准备了一套50讲的课程，从1802年1月开始讲授。课程分为四部分：力学、流体动力学、物理学和数学。然而，其涵盖的主题范围远比这些部分标题所暗示的更为广泛。他的学术讲座并未取得很大成功，因为正如一位听众所写[7]：-

……他假定……听众是有知识的，而不是无知的。

1803年夏天，他辞职以便集中精力建立自己的医疗业务。然而在此之前，他在物理学方面做了进一步的重要工作，于1803年11月在皇家学会宣读了Experiments and calculations relative to physical optics。在这篇论文中，他提出了光的波动理论，用它来解释干涉图样，并描述了他如何利用衍射确定不同颜色光的波长。

1804年6月14日，杨与伊丽莎·麦克斯韦结婚；他们没有孩子。乔治·皮科克写道[6]：-

这是一桩基于相互爱慕和尊重的婚姻，正如他一直所期待的那样，是他职业及其他努力的伟大目标，并为他赢得了一个因良好举止和修养品味而增光的家：这是一桩异常幸福的婚姻。

同样在1804年，杨被任命为伦敦皇家学会的外交秘书，他担任此职直至去世。

1807年，杨出版了A course of lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts。这是一部两卷本著作，基于他在皇家研究所的讲座，但也包含了他未在那里讲课时发表的论文，以及一份令人难以置信的从希腊时代到写作之日的科学文献目录。该目录包含超过20,000个项目，按系统形式排列。这本书包含了更多支持光的波动理论的实验证据，以回应他早期工作引发的严厉批评。必须理解，艾萨克·牛顿提出了光的微粒理论，而艾萨克·牛顿受到英国科学家的高度重视，以至于任何提出与艾萨克·牛顿相矛盾的人都会不可避免地受到嘲笑。这本书还包含一篇关于弹性的力学讲座，其中首次引入了杨模量。

杨建立了自己的医疗业务，但尽管他作为医生很有天赋，却几乎没有患者所寻求的那种风度，因此他并未取得很大成功。1811年，他被任命到圣乔治医院。他在那里非常勤勉地履行职责，但似乎再次未能给人留下深刻印象。也许他因为在医学领域之外的专长而过于知名，以至于在医学界内难以获得多少尊重。

杨广泛活动的另一个方面我们尚未提及。这就是他从1814年开始努力理解埃及象形文字。他在1813年出版了一部医学著作An introduction to medical literature，并在1815年完成了A practical and historical treatise on consumptive diseases的工作后，开始了这一新兴趣。罗塞塔石碑包含三种不同语言的文本：希腊文、世俗体和象形文字，于1802年在伦敦展出，但当时他过于忙于皇家学院的讲座，随后又忙于出版这些讲座，之后他对医学事业的专注使他偏离了这项在许多方面都适合他技能和兴趣的理想任务。破译象形文字的功劳最终归于法国语言学家让-弗朗索瓦·商博良，但他从杨的努力中受益匪浅，两人进行了大量通信。最终，国家间的竞争阻止了让-弗朗索瓦·商博良给予杨应得的荣誉。然而，正是杨为破译世俗体文字做出了主要贡献。

1816年，弗朗索瓦·阿拉戈拜访了杨，讨论奥古斯丁·菲涅耳关于光的波动说的实验。次年，杨访问巴黎，受到弗朗索瓦·阿拉戈的欢迎来到研究所。1821年，杨再次访问法国，这次带着他的妻子，然后他们前往意大利，在收到妻子母亲病重的消息后于1821年10月返回英国。他自青年时代以来一直非常健康的身体，在1828年访问日内瓦时开始恶化。1829年2月，他开始感到呼吸困难，并于5月去世。

对于像杨这样有才华的人来说，他获得的荣誉相对较少。最令他高兴的是1827年当选为巴黎科学院的外国院士。两年后杨去世时，弗朗索瓦·阿拉戈在科学院发表了悼词，说道：-

杨在自己的国家去世，并未引起多少关注。

根据George Eliot在Middlemarch中的说法，他写了“令人厌恶的诗句”。

Thomas Young's parents were Thomas Young Senior, a cloth merchant and banker, and Sarah Davis who were [11]:-

... rather below than above the middle station of life.

In [11] Young writes that his father:-

... followed the commercial fashion of the day, and became a manufacturer of money: he was for a time very successful in his speculations: but though a man of strict integrity, he was at last involved in the ruinous consequences of the general depression of the value of landed property so fatal to the country's bankers.

Thomas was the eldest of the ten children in this Quaker family but, from soon after his birth, he was brought up by his mother's father Robert Davis in Minehead about 15 miles from Milverton.

As a young boy, he did not find school very stimulating. He attended the village school from around four years of age, then was sent to a clergyman before he was six [11]:-

... who had neither the talent nor temper to teach anything well.

He then spent eighteen months attending a boarding school near Bristol, but mostly he worked on his own, getting through the set books in less than half the time taken by the teacher. In 1782 he entered a school in Crompton, Dorset, which was more suitable for a young genius since pupils were given more freedom to progress at their own pace. For Young this pace was very fast, for he was undoubtedly an infant prodigy. By the time he left this school in 1786 he was knowledgeable in many languages, including ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew, as well as French and Italian. He had also acquired a good grounding in Newtonian physics, studied optics and made several instruments with the help of a tutor at the school. His passion for eastern languages continued after he left the school and he began to study Arabic, Persian, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samarian.

Although only thirteen years old, Young now became a tutor to Hudson Gurney, the twelve year old grandson of David Barcley who lived in a country house near Ware in Hertfordshire. Young spent five years to 1792 working in the country house or at Barcley's London home. He took the opportunity to educate himself in mathematics, reading Euclid's Elements and the works of Newton. He also read other scientific books, as well as books on history and languages. In the autumn of 1792 he moved to London to begin his studies of medicine. As well as attending lectures at the Hunterian school, he enrolled as a pupil at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Required to dissect an ox's eye, he began to develop a theory of accommodation for the eye. He published his theories in Observations on vision read to the Royal Society of London on 30 May 1793. Young was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 19 June 1794.

Young continued his medical training, entering the University of Edinburgh in 1794. As a Quaker he could not study at Oxford or Cambridge, so within Britain he could only obtain a degree from a Scottish university. After one year of study he went to the University of Göttingen, arriving there in October 1795. After submitting a dissertation, Young was given an oral examination and passed on 30 April 1796. The dissertation used Young's expertise in anatomy, language and sound. He left Göttingen in late July and visited Brunswick, Gotha, Weimar, Jena, Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin before returning to England in February 1797. He discovered, however, that a change in regulations by the College of Physicians required a period of two years study at the same university before qualifying to practise medicine. He therefore went to Emmanuel College Cambridge, but before doing so he had to leave the Quakers and declare himself a member of the Church of England. He did not find this hard for he had been moving steadily away from the strict Quaker rules, attending dances and the theatre while in Edinburgh.

Although enrolled in the medical course, Young did not study medicine at Cambridge, feeling that he already knew sufficient of that subject. Rather he worked on his own, learning more physics in order that he might pursue interests coming from his Göttingen dissertation. He had little respect for the Cambridge mathematicians writing:-

I am ashamed to find how much the foreign mathematicians for these forty years have surpassed the English in the higher branches of the sciences.

The Cambridge men thought little of Young in return. A tutor wrote (see [7]):-

He seldom gave an opinion, and never volunteered one. He never laid down the law like other learned doctors, or uttered ... sayings to be remembered. Indeed, like most mathematicians, ... he never seemed to think abstractly. A philosophical fact, a difficult calculation, an ingenious instrument, or a new invention, would engage his attention ...

On 13 December 1797 Young's great-uncle died and left him his London home and a good sum of money which left Young financially secure. He read the paper Sound and light to the Royal Society in January 1800 and a further paper On the mechanism of the eye in November 1800. This second paper contained further details of the process of accommodation of the eye and measured astigmatism for the first time. He read another paper On the theory of light and colours to the Royal Society late in 1801 and it was published in the following year. This paper put forward the theory of three colour vision to explain how the eye could detect colours. Also in 1801 Young sold his great uncle's house and bought a new one in Welbeck Street. Soon after he moved in, he was approached to lecture at the Royal Institution. He accepted and worked hard to produce a course of 50 lectures which he gave beginning in January 1802. The course was divided into four parts: Mechanics; Hydrodynamics; Physics; and Mathematics. It covered a much broader range of topics, however, than these section headings suggest. His scholarly lectures were not a great success since, as one listener wrote [7]:-

... he presumed ... on the knowledge and not on the ignorance of his hearers.

He resigned in the summer of 1803 in order to concentrate on building his medical practice. Before doing this, however, he did further important work on physics, reading Experiments and calculations relative to physical optics to the Royal Society in November 1803. In this paper he presented a wave theory of light using it to explain interference patterns and describing how he had determined the wavelength of different colours of light using diffraction.

On 14 June 1804 Young married Eliza Maxwell; they had no children. Peacock writes [6]:-

It was a marriage of mutual affection and esteem, such as he had always looked forward to as the great object of his professional and other exertions, and secured for him a home which was graced by all the refinements of good manners and a cultivated taste: it was a singularly happy marriage.

Also in 1804 Young was made foreign secretary to the Royal Society of London, a post he filled for the rest of his life.

In 1807 Young published A course of lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts. It was a two volume work based on the lectures he had given at the Royal Institution but also contained papers he had not delivered during his lectures there together with an incredible catalogue of scientific literature from Greek times up to the date of writing. This catalogue contained over 20,000 items arranged in a systematic form. The book contained more experimental evidence to support a wave theory of light, produced to answer the severe criticism that his earlier work had prompted. One has to understand that Newton had proposed a corpuscular theory of light and Newton was held in such high regard by English scientists that anyone suggesting something contradicting Newton would inevitably be ridiculed. The book also contained a mechanics lecture dealing with elasticity where Young's modulus is introduced for the first time.

Young built up his medical practice but, although he was talented as a doctor, he had little of the manner that patients sought, so he did not have a great deal of success. In 1811 he was appointed to St George's Hospital. He carried out his duties there with great diligence but again he seems to have failed to make much of an impression. Perhaps he was just too well known for his expertise outside the medical field to gain much respect within it.

There is yet another side to Young's broad range of activities to which as yet we have made no mention. This is his effort, begun in 1814, to understand Egyptian hieroglyphics. He started on this new interest after publishing a medical work An introduction to medical literature in 1813 and completing the work for A practical and historical treatise on consumptive diseases which was published in 1815. The Rosetta Stone, containing texts in three different languages, Greek, demotic script and hieroglyphic script, had gone on display in London in 1802 but at that time he was too involved with his Royal Institution lectures, then in publishing these lectures, and after that his concentration on a medical career diverted him from what, in many ways, was the ideal task for someone of his skills and interests. The credit for deciphering hieroglyphic eventually went to the French linguist Champollion, but he benefited greatly from Young's efforts and the two corresponded at great length. In the end national rivalry prevented Champollion giving Young the credit that he deserved. However, it was Young who made the major contribution to deciphering demotic script.

In 1816 Arago visited Young to discuss Fresnel's experiments on the wave theory of light. In the following year Young visited Paris and was welcomed by Arago to the Institute. In 1821 Young visited France again, this time with his wife, then they went on to Italy before returning to England in October 1821 on receiving news that his wife's mother was seriously ill. His own health, which had been outstanding since his youth, took a turn for the worse in 1828 while he was visiting Geneva. He began to experience difficulty in breathing in February 1829 and died in May.

For someone as talented as Young, he received relatively few honours. The one which pleased him most was election as a foreign member of the Institute in Paris in 1827. When Young died two years later, Arago gave the eulogy at the Institute saying:-

The death of Young in his own country attracted but little regard.

According to George Eliot in Middlemarch, he wrote "detestable verses".