He was called the king of intuition. Joseph Priestley remained in history as the author of fundamental discoveries in the field of gas chemistry and in the theory of electricity. He was a theosophist and a priest who was called an "honest heretic".
Priestley is the greatest intellectual of the second middle of the 18th century, who left a noticeable mark on philosophy and philology, and he is also the inventor of carbonated water and an eraser for erasing pencil lines from paper.
early years
The eldest of six children of a conservative cloth-maker's family, Joseph Priestley was born in the spring of 1733 in the small village of Filshead near Leeds. Difficult circumstances early childhood forced his parents to give Joseph to the family of his aunt, who decided to prepare his nephew for a career as an Anglican priest. A strict upbringing and a good theological and humanitarian education awaited him.
Early displayed abilities and zeal allowed Priestley to successfully complete the Betley Gymnasium, where there is now a faculty named after him, and the theological academy in Deventry. He took a course in science and chemistry at the University of Warrington, which prompted him to set up a home laboratory and start independent scientific experiments.
Scientist Priest
In 1755, Joseph Priestley became an associate pastor, but was formally ordained in 1762. It was an unusual minister of the church. Well-educated, who knew 9 living people, and in 1761 he wrote the book "Fundamentals English grammar". This textbook was relevant for the next half century.
Possessing a lively analytical mind, Joseph Priestley formed his religious beliefs by getting acquainted with the works of leading philosophers and theologians. As a result, he departed from those dogmas that were instilled in his family at birth. He went from Calvinism to Arianism, and then to an even more rationalist current - Unitarianism.
Despite the stuttering that he had after a childhood illness, Priestley did a lot of preaching and teaching. Acquaintance with Benjamin Franklin, an outstanding scientist of that time, intensified Joseph Priestley's studies in science.
Experiments in the field of electricity
The main science for Franklin was physics. Electricity was of great interest to Priestley, and on the advice of one of the future founding fathers of the United States, in 1767 he published the work "The History and Present State of Electricity." Several fundamental discoveries were published in it, which brought the author well-deserved fame in the circles of English and European scientists.
The electrical conductivity of graphite, discovered by Priestley, later acquired great practical importance. Pure carbon has become a component of many electrical devices. Priestley described an experiment in electrostatics, as a result of which he concluded that the magnitude of electrical influences and Newton's were similar. His assumption about the inverse square law was later reflected in the fundamental law of the theory of electricity - Coulomb's law.
Carbon dioxide
Conductivity, interactions of charges - not the only area of scientific interests Priestley. He found topics for research in the most unexpected places. The work that led to the discovery of carbon dioxide was started by him while observing the brewing industry.
In 1772, Priestley drew attention to the properties of the gas that was formed during the fermentation of wort. It was Priestley who developed a method for producing gas in the laboratory, discovered that it is heavier than air, makes combustion difficult and dissolves well in water, giving it an unusual, refreshing taste.
Photosynthesis
Continuing the experiments with carbon dioxide, Priestley set up an experiment that began the history of the discovery of the fundamental phenomenon for the existence of life on the planet - photosynthesis. Placing a green plant shoot under a glass container, he lit a candle and filled the container with carbon dioxide. After some time, he placed live mice there and tried to light a fire. The animals continued to live, and the burning continued.
Priestley was the first person to observe photosynthesis. The appearance of a gas under a closed container, capable of supporting respiration and combustion, could only be explained by the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide and release another, life-giving substance. The results of the experiment became the basis for the birth of global physical theories in the future, including the law of conservation of energy. But the first conclusions of the scientist were in line with the then science.
Joseph Priestley explained photosynthesis in terms of the phlogiston theory. Its author - Georg Ernst Stahl - assumed the presence of a special substance in combustible substances - weightless fluids - phlogistons, and the combustion process consists in the decomposition of the substance into its constituent components and the absorption of phlogistons by air. Priestley remained a supporter of this theory even after he made his most important discovery - he isolated oxygen.
Major discovery
Many of Joseph Priestley's experiments led to results that were correctly explained by other scientists. He designed a device where the resulting gases were separated from the air not by water, but by another, denser liquid - mercury. As a result, he was able to isolate volatile substances that previously dissolved in water.
Priestley's first new gas was nitrous oxide. He discovered its unusual effect on people, which is why the unusual name appeared - laughing gas. Subsequently, it began to be used as a surgical anesthesia.
In 1774, from a substance later identified as mercury oxide, the scientist managed to isolate a gas in which a candle began to burn surprisingly brightly. He called it dephlogisticated air. Priestley remained convinced of this nature of combustion, even when Antoine Lavoisier proved that the discovery of Joseph Priestley is a substance that has the most important properties for the entire process of life. The new gas was named oxygen.
Chemistry and life
Nitrous oxide, oxygen - the study of these gases provided Priestley with a place in Determination of the composition of gases involved in the process of photosynthesis - the scientist's contribution to biology. Experiments with electric charges, methods of decomposition of ammonia with the help of electricity, work on optics gained the scientist prestige among physicists.
The discovery made by Priestley on April 15, 1770, is not of such fundamental importance. It has made life easier for many generations of schoolchildren and office workers. The history of the discovery began with the fact that Priestley discovered how a piece of rubber from India perfectly erases pencil lines from paper. This is how rubber appeared - what we call an eraser.
Priestley's philosophical and religious beliefs were distinguished by independence, which earned him the fame of a rebellious thinker. Priestley's History of the Corruption of Christianity (1782) and his support for revolutions in France and America angered the most ardent English conservatives.
When he celebrated in 1791 with like-minded people the crowd, fueled by preachers, destroyed Priestley's house and laboratory in Birmingham. Three years later, he was forced to emigrate to the United States, where in 1804 his days ended.
Great dilettante
Religious, social and political activity Priestley is a huge contribution to the intellectual development of Europe, America and the whole world. A materialist and staunch opponent of tyranny, he actively communicated with the most independent minds of that era.
This man was considered by many to be an amateur, he was called a scientist who did not receive a regular and complete natural science education, Priestley was blamed for the fact that he could not fully realize the importance of his discoveries.
But for centuries there was another Joseph Priestley. His biography is a bright page in world history. This is the life of an outstanding erudite, a convinced preacher of the most progressive ideas, an honorary member of all the leading scientific academies of Europe and the world - a scientist who made a significant contribution to the formation of fundamental theories of natural science.
According to Priestley, matter has extension, density and impenetrability, its characteristics are determined by the action of forces of attraction and repulsion; sensations and thinking of a person are a consequence of the complex organization of matter. Priestley rejected dualism Locke from the standpoint of mechanism: for example, he interpreted associations of ideas as a kind of resonance. Being, in the words of his contemporaries, "the sorcerer of experiment", he demanded the combination of experiment and theory, he paid much attention to the problems of constructing hypotheses, analogy, etc. Defending in sociology determinism opposed fatalism. From the position of deism, he criticized the atheism of the French materialists. He was a supporter of eudemonistic ethics, believed that the greatest personal happiness is compatible with the happiness of others.
Philosophical Dictionary. Ed. I.T. Frolova. M., 1991, p. 363.
Priestley Joseph (March 13, 1733, Fieldhead, England - February 6, 1804, Northumberland, USA) was an English philosopher, priest, scientist and statesman, whose works and activities made a great contribution to the development of experimental natural science, political and religious freethinking. Born in a Protestant family of the owner of a small weaving factory. In 1755 he graduated from the Deventry Theological Academy and received a position as an assistant priest. In 1758 he opened his school in Nantwich, then moved to the Theological Academy in Warrington. In 1765 the University of Edinburgh awarded him a doctorate in literature. For scientific achievements (the discovery of the phenomenon of photosynthesis, the production of hydrogen chloride and oxygen), Priestley was elected a member of the Royal Society of London in 1766, and in 1772 a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. In 1780 he became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In his first philosophical work, An Essay on the Basic Principles of Government and on the Nature of Political, Civil, and Religious Liberty (1769), Priestley acted as a staunch supporter of the idea of the progress of man and civil society. He supported the struggle for independence in North America defended the ideals French Revolution 18th century On July 14, 1791, an angry mob protesting against the revolutionary events in France destroyed his house, library and laboratory. In April 1794, Priestley and his wife emigrated to the United States.
His most important philosophical works are Hartley's Theory of the Human Spirit Based on the Association of Ideas with Essays on the Subject (1775), Studies on Matter and Spirit (1777), Philosophical Doctrine of Necessity (1777). Priestley solves cardinal philosophical problems on a materialistic basis, rejects the idea of the soul as a substance different from the body, while relying on Gartley's doctrine of the association of ideas and the role of vibrations in creating sensations. Matter was defined by him as an active substance that has the property of extension and the forces of attraction and repulsion. Paying tribute to mechanism, Priestley even considered ideas as a special form of moving matter. However, materialism, according to Priestley, does not contradict Christianity, tk. "reasonable root cause" does not interfere in the course of events in the world and does not predetermine the causal relationship of events and consequences. Everything in the world happens due to natural causes, and in the case of man, due to always motivated decisions of the human will.
V.F. Korovin
New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Huseynov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Thought, 2010, vol. III, N - S, p. 352-353.
Priestley (Priestley) Joseph (13. 3. 1733, Fieldhead, near Leeds - 6. 2. 1804, Northumberland, Pennsylvania, USA), English materialist philosopher, chemist (he owns the discovery of oxygen), public figure. After graduating from the theological academy, he became a priest. He defended the ideas of religious tolerance, opposed British colonial rule in North America, and welcomed the French Revolution. Due to persecution, he was forced to emigrate to the United States (1794). Member of the Royal Society of London (1767) and Member of the Parisian Academy of Sciences (1772); in 1780 he was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
In a long and passionate polemic with supporters of various idealistic schools, Priestley taught that nature is material and that spirit (consciousness) is a property of matter moving according to inevitable laws inherent in it. At the same time, adhering to deism, Priestley believed that these laws themselves were created by divine reason. With the principle of the materiality of the world, Priestley connected the idea of the strictest causation (necessity) of all phenomena, rejecting the theologians' assertions that, with such an understanding, a person as a particle of matter is not responsible for his actions.
Priestley developed and popularized the doctrine Gartley about what everything mental processes, including abstract thinking and will, are carried out according to rooted in nervous system the laws of association. Priestley criticized the philosophy of the Scottish school.
Priestley also owns a number of valuable works on the history of science and the methodology of scientific research.
Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ch. editors: L. F. Ilyichev, P. N. Fedoseev, S. M. Kovalev, V. G. Panov. 1983.
Works: The theological and miscellaneous works, v. 1-25, L., 1817-1832; Writings on philosophy, science and politics, ed., with an introd. by .1. A. Passmore, N. Y.-L. 1965; in Russian per.- Fav. soch., M., 1934; in book: English. materialists of the 18th century, vol. 3, Moscow, 1968.
Literature: History of Philosophy, vol. 2, M., 1941, p. 246-50; History of Philosophy, vol. 1, M., 1957, p. 615-19; Holt, A.D., A life of J. Priestley, L., 1931.
Read further:
Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).
Historical Persons of England (Biographical Index).
Compositions:
The Theological and Miscellaneous Works, v. 1–25. L., 1817–32;
Writings on Philosophy, Science and Politics, ed., with an introductions by J.A. Passmore. N.Y., 1965;
Fav. op. M., 1934;
English materialists of the 18th century, vol. 3. M., 1968.
Literature:
Kuznetsov V.I., Meerovsky B.V., Gryaznov A.F. Western European philosophy of the 18th century. M., 1986;
Gibbs F.W. Joseph Priestley. 1965;
Hoecker J.J. Joseph Priestley and the Idea of Progress. Garland, 1987.
September 13, 2014 - 120 years since the birth
August 14, 2014 - 30 years since death
John Boynton Priestley (September 13, 1894 - August 14, 1984)
- English writer, playwright, theater director
J.B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley(English John Boynton Priestley; September 13, 1894, Bradford - August 14, 1984, Stratford-upon-Avon) was born September 13, 1894 at 34 Mannheim Road in Manningham, which he described as an "extremely respectable" suburb of Bradford (county Yorkshire, UK). His father was a director (headmaster). His mother died when he was only two years old, and his father remarried four years later. Priestley was educated at the Belle Vue Grammar School, from which he left at sixteen to work as a junior clerk for the wool firm Helm & Co at Swan Arcade. During his years at Helm & Co (1910-1914) he began writing articles at night for local and London papers. Later, he often drew on the memories of Bradford in many of his works written after he moved south, including Bright Day and When We Are Married. In his old age, he deplored the destruction of Victorian buildings in Bradford, such as the Swan Arcade where he began his career.
But Priestley was not going to make a commercial career, much less stay in sleepy Bradford, and if he did not immediately rush to conquer the world, it was primarily because he had abilities in many forms of art and could not decide who he would be - a writer, an actor or musician. Before the war of 1914, he entered the University of Cambridge, but after the outbreak of hostilities, he volunteered for the front.
Priestley served during the First World War in the infantry, in the 10th battalion of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment. He spent almost four years in the trenches. He was wounded in 1916 during a mortar attack, promoted to officer.
In his autobiography, he is virulently critical of the British army and the senior officers in particular.
J.B. Priestley during the First World War (1914-1918)
He returned to the student bench already established, an adult, he graduated from the university late, but with honors in literature. modern history and political sciences.
In 1921 he married Emily "Pat" Tempest, an amateur musician and librarian from Bradford. They had two daughters, in 1923 and 1924, but in 1925 his wife died of cancer.
In September 1926 he married Jane Wyndham-Lewis (ex-wife of the biographer and satirist, the original "Beachcomber" (tramp, bum) D. B. Wyndham-Lewis, who had no relation to the artist Wyndham Lewis); they had two daughters (including Mary Priestley, a music therapist who developed the theory of analytical music therapy, the synthesis of psychoanalytic theory and music therapy. Based on the theories of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein, analytical music therapy involves the use of musical improvisations to interpret unconscious processes ) and one son.
Tom Priestley Winifred Mary Jane Priestley (née Holland) by Madame Yevonde (1932,
Thomas ("Tom") Holland Priestley (1932-), Film maker and editor; son of John Boynton ("J.B.") Priestley.
Winifred Mary Jane Priestley (née Holland) (1894-1984), Second wife of John Boynton ("J.B.") Priestley.
Mary Wyndham Lewis; J.B. Priestley by Howard Coster (1934)
Successes in the literary field were not long in coming. By the age of thirty, Priestley had already made a name for himself as a critic, literary critic, and essayist. Based on his novel Benighted (1927), James Whale made the film The Old Dark House (1932) (The Old Dark House). The novel was published under this title in the United States. At thirty-five, he published the novel Good Comrades (1929), which immediately took a prominent place in literature. This early novel about the adventures of an itinerant troupe of actors was read by "all England" in its first year. Then it was reprinted for such a long time and in such circulations that it surpassed in this respect any novel written in England between two warriors.
J.B. Priestley by Howard Coster (1926)
His next novel, Angel Pavement (1930), confirmed his reputation as a successful novelist. However, some critics didn't think so highly of his work, and Priestley even started a lawsuit against Graham Greene for making him look ugly in the novel The Stamboul Train (1932).
J.B. Priestley with pipe, reading, circa 1930
The staging of The Good Companions, undertaken in 1931 with Edward Knoblock, paved the way for Priestley's performance, staged by Edward Knoblock and Julian Wylie (in which John Gielgud was involved), aroused the unanimous approval of the public; crowd scenes received special praise. In 1932, Priestley's first work appeared, intended from the very beginning for the theater - the play "Dangerous Turn". The play was a phenomenal success and soon went to many countries of the world.
The desire, on the one hand, for the greatest possible concentration of action, on the other hand, for the widest coverage of reality, attracts Priestley's attention to theories that would make it possible to combine different time periods in the present. The design of the "Dangerous Turn" was determined by the notion of "two possible realities" used more than once in science fiction, each of which is rooted in the present. This brought Priestley directly to the problem of time. He called his next several plays "plays about time".
One of the theories was that of the English aircraft designer and philosopher John William Dunn, author of The Experiment with Time (1927), which Priestley called "one of the most impressive, interesting, and perhaps most important books of our century. "Dunn proves the simultaneous nature of the present, past and future. These parallel layers of time are hidden from our feelings and open only in dreams and in those rare moments when it seems to a person that he has already experienced something that is happening to him now This theory directly determined the construction of the play "Time and the Conway Family" (1937).
J.B. Priestley; Mae BaconMae Bacon (1897-1981), Actress by Keystone Press Agency Ltd (circa 1938)
The sequence of genres with which Priestley entered literature and theater was not accidental. As he stated in 1938, from the very beginning he dreamed of writing plays, but he postponed the implementation of this plan until he acquired a solid financial situation and will not depend on the tastes of theater entrepreneurs. Most of all, he was obviously afraid of sharing his fate - falling into the category of "commercial playwrights"
Priestley produced his first play in the year Maugham announced his impending retirement from the theatre, and his work marks quite clearly the next stage in the development of English drama.
Priestley, John Boynton
Nevertheless, he won a huge success in the theater. From the 30s to the 40s, inclusive, it was his works that determined the basis of the repertoire of the English theater; in terms of the number of performances staged abroad, Priestley surpassed any English playwright of the first half of the 20th century. The scope of Priestley's theatrical work is unusually large. He wrote more than forty plays (some with other playwrights), wrote extensively on various theatrical issues, from artistic to financial, tried himself as a director - albeit unsuccessfully - and showed excellent business acumen, acting as a theater entrepreneur.
He directed two London theaters, where Rocket Alley, Paradise, When We Are Married and other plays of the playwright were successfully staged.
Forty-four years old, Priestley fulfilled his old dream - he acted as an actor. He completely professionally, having won the sympathy of both the public and critics, played a role in his play "When We Are Married", staged in 1938 on the stage of the Theater of St. Martin. Of course, he was greatly helped in this respect by the experience acquired in his youth on the amateur stage. He needed this experience all the more so because he learned about the opportunity to play this role (the drunken photographer Henry Ormonroyd) only a day before the performance. The same comedy was the first play to be broadcast on English television. Subsequently, Priestley wrote several television plays. He turned out to be one of the first English playwrights to master the technique of this genre.
J.B. Priestley by Powys Evans (early 1930s?)
Priestley had a deep love for classical music, and in 1941 he was instrumental in organizing and supporting a fundraising campaign for the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which was fighting to establish itself as a self-governing body after the departure of Sir Thomas Beecham. In 1949, the opera The Olympians by Arthur Bliss premiered to a libretto by Priestley.
A photograph of writer J B Priestley (1894-1984) at work in the study at his home in Highgate, London. (1940).
During World War II, he hosted the Postscript program on the BBC. His broadcasts gathered an audience of up to 16,000,000 people; only Churchill was more popular with listeners. .
Radio appearances brought the writer national fame. They were one of the peaks of anti-fascist journalism during the Second World War. Priestley was listened to in military units, factories, homes and bomb shelters. With applause that did not stop for a long time after each performance of "They Came to the City", the British honored not only the playwright, but also the publicist, who for several years had spoken to them on their own behalf, it seemed.
But his transmissions were cancelled. It was believed that this was done at the direction of Churchill, as they were too left
During World War II, Priestley's topical publications were constantly published. In the post-war period, the novels Jenny Villiers, The Farbridge Festival, Dr. Salt Leaves, the collection of short stories The Other Place, and other works, saw the light of day.
The last great successes fell to Priestley the playwright in the early post-war years. It cannot be said that he made any artistic discoveries at this time. However, in two of his post-war plays - "The Inspector's Visit" * and "The Linden Family" - he brought to perfection and socially enriched the type of drama found in the pre-war decade. The play "The Inspector Came" won particular success. Written in one week in the winter of 1944/45, it first saw the light of the limelight in the USSR, then was staged in several other countries of the world, in 1954 it was made into a film with Alastair Sim in leading role. The London premiere in 1946 (Old Vic) featured Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson and other famous artists.
Many of his works are socialist in orientation. For example, An Inspector Calls contains many references to socialist ideas. the inspector was perhaps his alter ego, through whom Priestley was able to express his views
Priestley chaired the 1941 Committee, and in 1942 he was a founding member of the socialist Common Wealth Party. The political content of his broadcasts and his hopes for a new, different England influenced the politics of the post-war period and helped the Labor Party to get a landslide victory in the 1945 elections.
A writer and publicist whose public biography has known not only moments of upsurge, but also serious breakdowns, Priestley, at the same time, has always argued that the concept of individual freedom, applied to the personal and cultural side of life, should in no case concern the economy. It is intended to be managed by society. At the same time, Priestley saw it as his duty to achieve a change in obsolete social concepts, to fight with the help of art for a just and humane society.
J.B. Priestley; Maurice Lambert by P.A. Reuter Photos Ltd (August 1948)
Priestley's name was on an Orwell list that George Orwell developed in March 1949 for the Information Research Department. Orwell wrote down the names of individuals he suspected of being communist sympathizers (and thus unsuitable to be authors for the Department). The work on the list was carried out in detail, so, against the name of J. B. Priestley, a red asterisk was first put down, later crossed out crosswise with hatching in black, then it was circled in blue, and then a question mark was added.
Priestley, J.B. Writer, radio broadcaster. Book Club Selector. Apparently Recently Changed (1949). A solid sympathizer is probably in some sort of organizational connection. Very anti-American. Development in the last 10 years or less. May change. Makes a lot of money in the USSR. ??
J.B. Priestley by John Gay (1949)
J.B. Priestley by Sir David Low (1952 or before)
In 1953, he divorced his second wife and married the archaeologist and writer Jacquetta Hawkes, his collaborator on Dragon's Mouth, with whom he settled at Kissing Tree House, next to Shakespeare's Stratford-upon- avon,
Jacquetta Hawkes by Mary Potter (1967, University of Bradford Permanent Art Collection)
Jacquetta Hawkes; J.B. Priestley by Howard Coster (1953)
Jacquetta Hawkes and J.B. Priestley on boat while visiting Japan, 1952
John Priestley also tried himself in the field of a screenwriter, writing the script for the film The Last Holiday.
In his works, Priestley glorified the spiritual principle in man, condemning self-interest and material interests. His work has much in common with the works of C. Dickens and J. M. Barry.
He was one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958.
In 1960, Priestley published Literature and Western Man, a 500-page survey of Western literature in all its genres, including Russia and the United States, but excluding Asia, from the second half of the 15th century to the 50s (the last author discussed is Thomas Wolf).
J. B. Priestley by Michael Noakes (1970, National Portrait Gallery, London)
Priestley scorned the offer to become a Lord in 1965 and the award of the Companion of Honor (which is a junior brother of the Order of Merit) in 1969. But became a member of the Order of Merit in 1977. He has also been a British delegate to UNESCO conferences.
J.B. Priestley by Dmitri Kasterine (1975)
J.B. Priestley by Cecil Beaton (1970s?)
During his long and prolific career, Priestley published over 120 books, generally light and upbeat in tone. The most prolific period was up to 60 years. Between the ages of 70 and 84, Priestley published 21 books.
J.B. Priestley by David Reed (1978)
Jacquetta Hawkes; J.B. Priestley by Lord Snowdon (May 29, 1980)
The University of Bradford awarded Priestley an Honorary Doctorate of Literature in 1970, he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Bradford in 1973 for his services to the city, which was also recognized by Priestley's naming of the Bradford University Library, which was officially opened in 1975, as well as the installation of a monument commissioned by the Bradford City Council after his death.
Statue of John Boynton (J.B.) Priestley This statue is located at the side of the National Media Museum, near the Public Library
John Priestley died on August 14, 1984 in Stratford-upon-Avon (Warwickshire, England).
Joseph Priestley combined a variety of talents. From his youth, he was actively interested in literature, philosophy, linguistics, science and religion. And after he graduated with honors from school and the theological academy, he made his choice in favor of worship, becoming a priest.
Joseph Priestley originally saw himself as a priest
However, this activity did not prevent him from realizing his scientific ideas. Convinced that it was Providence that chose him, Priestley began his research, or rather, he seriously began to study chemistry. It is worth noting that before that the scientist already knew Latin, Ancient Greek, Chaldean and Hebrew languages and, having taken the dignity, at the same time taught foreign languages and literature at the Warrington Academy. He also wrote the course "Fundamentals of English Grammar" and the monograph "History of the doctrine of electricity."
Priestley made the world's first soda bottle
Meanwhile, one of the brightest discoveries of the scientist was carbon dioxide. Despite the fact that it was discovered earlier, it was Joseph Presley who singled it out in its purest form. Watching at a local brewery how bubbles are released during fermentation, he wondered: “What are they made of?”. Priestley then suggested that the gas should be highly soluble in water. And without thinking twice, he installed water containers over the prepared beer. Seeing that the water was charged, the scientist found that carbon dioxide was in the bubbles. In 1767, Joseph Priestley made the world's first soda bottle. He tasted the carbon monoxide solution and found it quite pleasant.
Some time later, he presented a paper on the properties of sparkling water to the Royal Society. There, he visually demonstrated a batch of soda soda according to his own recipe - "Pyrmontese water". After that, the distribution of sparkling water around the world began, and Priestley was awarded the medal of the Royal Society of London. In 1771, he made a discovery about the role of carbon dioxide in plant respiration. The scientist noticed that green plants in the light continue to live in the atmosphere of this gas and even make it breathable. The classic experience of Joseph Priestley with live mice under a hood, where the air is "refreshed" by green branches, entered all elementary textbooks of natural science and lies at the origins of the theory of photosynthesis.
It was Priestley who invented the familiar eraser.
Later, Priestley accidentally discovered that raw natural rubber was able to erase traces of graphite, in other words, a pencil, better than bread particles, which were used at that time for the same purpose. So the well-known eraser was born.
In 1772, Joseph Priestley, acting diluted nitric acid on copper, for the first time he received "nitrate air" - nitric oxide. Subsequently, his discovery was transformed into a widely used anesthetic. By the way, in the same year, Joseph Priestley was elected a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences.
In 1774, the next discovery of the scientist took place - "alkaline air" or ammonia. To do this, he mixed powders of ammonium chloride (ammonia) and calcium hydroxide (slaked lime) and suddenly felt the pungent smell of a new substance. This smell intensified when the mixture was heated, and when Priestley tried to collect the volatile reaction product by displacing water from an inverted vessel with it, it turned out that the new gas immediately dissolved in it. It was the ammonia.
In the same year, he conducted another experiment, which in the future became another major contribution to the chemistry of gases. Joseph Priestley found one way to produce oxygen. Placing a little powder of "Mercurius calcinatus per se" - burnt mercury - under an overturned jar immersed in mercury, he took a small burning glass and directed the rays of the sun directly into the jar onto the powder. Then air began to be released from the powder, which forced the mercury out of the jar. Priestley was very surprised that in this air a candle burns better and brighter than in an ordinary atmosphere, and he began to study this phenomenon.
Priestley found one way to produce oxygen
At first, he believed that the “new air” was nitrous oxide or “dephlogisticated nitrate air,” as the scientist himself called it. But later, after numerous experiments, Priestley realized that they were different gases. He called the new gas "dephlogisticated air", because he believed that it contained much less phlogiston than ordinary air or did not contain at all. However, he himself could not explain the essence of this process to the end.
In 1780, Joseph Priestley became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
John Boynton Priestley(John Boynton Priestley) - English novelist, essayist, literary critic, screenwriter, playwright and theater director; biographer and travel writer, politician and UNESCO ambassador; a representative of the last generation of British free-thinkers-wise men who considered both science and philosophy in their literary works.
Priestley was born on September 3, 1894 in the north of England, in the suburbs of the industrial city of Bradford (Yorkshire) in the family of a teacher. His paternal grandfather was a miller and his maternal grandfather was a worker. The boy was named Jack at birth. His Irish mother died when Jack was not even three years old, and Priestley was raised mainly by his father, a man with clearly expressed religious, moral and social convictions, who believed that society could be corrected with the help of reforms.
Priestley was educated at the Belle Vue Grammar School, which he left at the age of sixteen. He worked as a junior clerk in the company "Helm & Co", engaged in wool. During his years at Helm & Co (1910-1914) he began writing nightly articles for local and London papers. Later, he often drew on the memories of Bradford in many of his writings, written after he moved south. Nurturing ambitious plans to become a writer, Priestley acquired a pseudonym John Boynton.
At the age of 19, he began writing the Around Health column for the Labor magazine Bradford Pioneer, but all plans were changed by the start of the First World War 1914-18 Priestley went to the front as a volunteer. He served in the infantry, in the 10th battalion of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment. He spent almost four years in the trenches. Priestley experienced all the hardships of wartime - he was wounded during a mortar attack, shell-shocked, then fell under gas attack of the enemy. He was forced to spend several months in hospitals. At this time, his first book came out - a volume of poetry "The Chapman of Rhymes" (1918), poetry of his youth. John Boynton published it at his own expense, thinking that he should "leave something", in the event that he is killed, like many of his comrades, in the war. Soon, due to health reasons, Priestley was demobilized from the army (1919), was promoted to officer. Later, in his autobiography, he fiercely criticized the British army and in particular senior officers.
After the war, Priestley entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, where he studied English literature. At university he gained valuable writing experience, working intensively for the Cambridge Review. After earning a bachelor's degree in modern history and political science, Priestley found work as a theater reviewer for the Daily News. Systematic peer review for the largest English publishing house "Bodley Head" expanded the horizons of the novice writer.
In 1921, Priestley married Emily Tempest (Emily "Pat" Tempest), an amateur musician and librarian from Bradford. A year later, Priestley published his first book of essays, Brief Diversions, and wrote reviews and essays for many periodicals (including the New Statesman) on literary topics. He had two daughters, but happiness was prevented by the death of his father (1924) and the sudden death of his wife Pat from cancer (1925). Despite the tragic events, John Boynton continued his career as a humorist and literary critic, in particular, he published the book Figures in contemporary literature"("Figures in modern literature", 1924), later - "English comic characters" ("The English Comic Characters", 1925). This was followed by several more essays and literary and historical works.
Priestley remarried in 1926. His chosen one, Jane Wyndham-Lewis, already had a daughter. Subsequently, the couple had two daughters (including Mary Priestley, a music therapist who developed the theory of analytical music therapy, a synthesis of psychoanalytic theory and music therapy. Based on the theories of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein, analytical music therapy involves the use of musical improvisations to interpret the unconscious processes) and son.
Essay writing Priestley considered his favorite pastime and the best literary exercise and published more than a dozen books in this genre during his life. If in the 1920s Priestley attracted readers with light humor, good humor, unobtrusive erudition and an unpretentious personality of the narrator, then in later essays we have an author who often starts a sharp controversy and touches on the social and philosophical aspects of being.
In the second half of the 1920s, Priestley began writing novels: Adam in Moonshine and Beated (1927). According to the second, James Whale made the film The Old Dark House (1932). Priestley's first major success came with The Good Companions (1929), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In the book, the author contrasted the pessimism and skepticism of the writers of the “lost generation” with an optimistic faith in overcoming the difficulties of the post-war period. The novel "The Good Companions" (filmed in 1933) immediately put the author into the category of the most widely read writers in England. However, some critics did not have such a high opinion of his work, Priestley even started a lawsuit against Graham Greene for having portrayed him in an unsightly way in the novel "Istanbul Express" ("Stamboul Train", 1932).
By the early 1930s, Priestley was already the author of a dozen books, but he became widely known with the publication of the novels Angel Street (1930, Russian translation 1960), They Walk in the City (1936), as well as a number of plays. Among Priestley's novels, critics single out the anti-Nazi work Blackout at Gratley (1942, Russian translation, 1944), dedicated to the difficulties of returning to civilian life; the novel "Three in New Suits" (1945, Russian translation 1946), novels about the life of Great Britain - "Festival at Farbridge" (1951), "Sir Michael and Sir George" (1964, Russian translation 1965) and the dilogy " Image Men" (1968-69).
Priestley's contribution to modern English drama is fruitful. A keen sense of the drama of life is combined in his plays with the formulation of social and moral issues. Rocket Alley (1934, filmed in 1936), Eden End (1934) and others were written in the traditional realistic manner. at Night (1938) and The Inspector's Visit (1947) are notable for their bold use of theatrical conventions. Later, the plays Treasures (1953, Russian translation, 1957) appeared; Mr. Kettle and Mrs. Moon (1955, Russian translation 1958); "Glass Cage" (1958). A deep interest in modernity and its problems imparts publicism to many of Priestley's works. From the 1930s to the 1940s, inclusive, it was his works that determined the basis of the repertoire of the English theater; in terms of the number of performances staged abroad, Priestley surpassed any English playwright of the first half of the 20th century. The volume of Priestley's theatrical work is great: he created more than forty plays (some in collaboration with other playwrights), wrote extensively about various theatrical problems, from artistic to financial, showed business acumen, acting as a theatrical entrepreneur. Directing two London theaters, Priestley directed 16 of his plays as a director.
At the age of forty-four Priestley tried himself as a stage actor, playing the part of the drunken photographer Henry Ormonroyd in his play When We Married, staged in 1938 at the Theater of St. Martin. It was favorably received by both the public and critics. The same comedy was the first play to be broadcast on English television. Subsequently, Priestley wrote several television plays. He turned out to be one of the first English playwrights to master the technique of this genre.
All his life, Priestley adhered to the left, pro-socialist views. During the Second World War, from June 1940, he hosted the Postscript radio program on BBC Radio for six months on Sundays, following the nine o'clock evening news (later published as British Speaks), often criticizing the government in them, for which this cycle was later closed. gears. In terms of popularity in Britain, Priestley was second only to Churchill, he was called "the voice of ordinary people". In 1941, he created the Committee, and in 1942, with like-minded people, he organized a socialist party of common (collective) property. The party itself did not win the election, but helped bring Labor to power in 1945. Immediately after the war, Priestley joined the ranks of the fighters of the Movement for Nuclear Disarmament.
After the Second World War, Priestley took an active part in the life of the international cultural community, was the representative of Great Britain at the UNESCO conferences in 1946 and 1947, was also the head of the theater conferences in Paris in 1947 and in Prague in 1948. In 1949 he worked as rector of the International Theater Institute . Upon returning home, he was elected chairman of the British Theater Conference (1948) and also a member of the British Theater Committee (1966-1967). In 1973, at the age of 80, Priestley was made an honorary citizen of his hometown of Bradford. He also had a love for classical music and in 1941 was instrumental in organizing and supporting a fundraising campaign for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1949, the premiere of the opera "The Olympians" to Priestley's libretto took place.
His film credits, in addition to film adaptations of novels, include the scripts for the films The Brigadier Went to France (1942) and The Last Holiday (1956). After returning to the theater world, he helped writer Iris Murdoch remake her acclaimed novel The Severed Head into a successful play (1963).
A broad outlook and erudition, combined with diligence, allowed Priestley to present readers with a wide variety of food for thought - suffice it to recall the travel notes "About England" (1933), where he appeals to the social conscience of the nation, the voluminous work "Literature and Western Man" (1960) with a review of Western literature over the past 500 years, a philosophical essay "Man and Time" (1964), where the author not only explores various theories and views on the nature of time, but also presents his own reasoning about the phenomenon of time.
In 1953, Priestley divorced his second wife and married the archaeologist and writer Jacquette Hawks, forming a famous literary tandem. Jacquetta has also worked for UNESCO and in the film industry. Together they wrote the plays Dragon's Mouth (1952) and Rainbow Journey (1955). A stay in New Zealand inspired Priestley to write Travels in New Zealand"(1974). Three years later, the autobiography "Instead of the Trees" appeared.
Priestley scorned the offer to become a Lord in 1965 and the award of the Companion of Honor (which is a junior brother of the Order of Merit) in 1969. But became a member of the Order of Merit in 1977. He has also been a British delegate to UNESCO conferences.
John Boyton Priestley died on August 14, 1984 in Stratford-upon-Avon in his bed. The University of Bradford awarded Priestley an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1970, he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Bradford in 1973 for services to the city, which were also recognized by Priestley's naming of the University of Bradford library, which was officially opened in 1975, and by the installation of a monument commissioned by the Bradford City Council after his death.
In his works, Priestley glorified the spiritual principle in man, condemning self-interest and material interests. His work has much in common with the works of C. Dickens and J. M. Barry.
Fantasy in the work of the author. In his work, Priestley repeatedly turned to the genre of fantasy: the novels The Doomsday Men (1938), Jenny Villiers (1947), with exhibits and characters of past years coming to life, The Magicians (1954) with psychological twists in the style of Carl Jung and playing with time, "June 31" (1962) - a chrono-opera describing the meeting of legendary characters from King Arthur's entourage with the British of the second half of the 20th century, as well as a number of stories (collection "Another Place", 1953).
The desire, on the one hand, for the greatest possible concentration of action, on the other hand, for the widest coverage of reality, attracted Priestley's attention to theories that would make it possible to combine different time periods in the present. The design of the play "Dangerous Turn" was determined by the notion of "two possible realities" used more than once in science fiction, each of which is rooted in the present. This brought Priestley directly to the problem of time. Priestley's work as a playwright was influenced by John W. Dunn's theories of time and repetition of processes, who proved the simultaneity of the present, past and future, as well as P. Uspensky's work on a new model of the Universe. The ideas of J. Dunn were put on stage in Priestley's thoughtful "time plays", almost supernatural plays about the nature of time - "Time and the Conway Family" (1937), "I Have Been There Before" (1938) and "Johnson Over Jordan" (1939). According to Dunn's theory, parallel layers of time are hidden from our senses and open only in dreams and in those rare moments when it seems to a person that he has already experienced what is happening to him now.
