John Michell
He was an English natural philosopher and priest who gave pioneering insights into a wide range of scientific subjects, including astronomy, geology, optics and gravity.
Considered "one of the greatest unsung scientists of all time,"he is the first known person to propose the existence of black holes, and the first to hypothesise that earthquakes propagated in (seismic) waves.
Recognizing that double stars were produced by mutual gravity, he was the first to apply statistics to cosmos study.
He created an apparatus to estimate Earth's mass, and showed how to make an artificial magnet. He was both seismology and magnetometry's father.
According to one science journalist, "a few elements of Michell's work actually sound like they're torn from the pages of a twentieth-century textbook on astronomy."
The American Physical Society (APS) regarded Michell as "so far ahead of his scientific peers that his ideas languished in darkness, until they were re-invented over a century later."
While "he was one of the most brilliant and innovative scientists of his time, Michell remains essentially forgotten today, partly because he did nothing to develop and promote his own path-breaking theories."
Early life, education and professional positions
John Michell was born in 1724 in Eakring, Nottinghamshire, a priest's son, Gilbert Michell, and Obedience Gerrard.
Gilbert was the son of William Michell and Kenwyn, Cornwall, Mary Taylor; Ralph's daughter Obedience and London's Hannah Gerrard.
He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, and later became Queens' Fellow. He earned his M.A. in 1752, and his B.D. in 1761.
He was College Tutor from 1751 to 1763; Arithmetic Praelector in 1751; Theology Censor in 1752; Geometry Praelector in 1753; Greek Praelector in 1755 and 1759; Senior Bursar in 1756; Hebrew Praelector in 1759 and 1762; Philosophy Censor and Examiner in 1760.
"He was nominated Rector of St Botolph's, Cambridge, on March 28, 1760, and lived till June 1763." From 1762 to 1764, he held Geology's Woodwardian Chair until he was forced to give it up on his marriage.
There's no surviving portrait of Michell; he's claimed to have been "a small short man, black, and obese."
In 1910, Sir Edmund Whittaker observed that during the century after the death of Isaac Newton, "the only natural philosopher of distinction who lived and taught at Cambridge was Michell," although his "research seems to have attracted little or no attention among his college contemporaries and successors, who silently acknowledged when his discoveries were attributed to others and allowed his name to exist. Michell took office at Compton and then Havant, both in Hampshire.
He unsuccessfully sought jobs at Cambridge during this period, including as Astronomer Royal.
In 1767 he was appointed rector of St. Michael's Thornhill Church near Leeds, Yorkshire, England, a job he retained for the remainder of his life.
He accomplished much of his main work in Thornhill, where he died on April 21, 1793, aged 68. There he's buried. After local pressure, a blue plaque went placed to remember him.
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