Joseph Black | Notable Biographies

(1728/04/16 - 1799/11/10)

Joseph Black
Physician, physicist and chemist Scottish

He was born April 16, 1728 in Bordeaux (France). Son of an Irish father and Scottish mother.
When he was 12 years old came into a "sex school in Belfast", and in 1746, travels to Glasgow to study medicine. He studied at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, in Scotland. He taught chemistry, Anatomy, and medicine from 1756 to 1766, at the University of Glasgow; Thereafter he worked as a Professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh.
Around 1761, Black introduced the concept of latent heat and three years later he measured the latent vaporisation heat. His pupil and Assistant James Watt put into practice these discoveries more later when he made the first steam engineimprovements. Near 1754 Black discovered the carbon dioxide, a gas that he called fixed air, and showed that it is produced from respiration, fermentation and combustion of charcoal; This helped him to refute the theory of the Phlogiston of combustion. He also discovered that different substances have different heat capacities.
Together with Adam Smith and James Hutton was founded the Oyster Club for weekly meetings.
Joseph Black died in Edinburgh on November 10, 1799.