1-156-965 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

John Tyndall, Irish born physicist and mountaineer, 1893. Tyndall (1820-1893) studied in Marburg under Robert Bunsen (1811-1899). He was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution, London, in 1854 and became President of British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874. Some of his most notable work was carried out in the fields of heat radiation and acoustics. A keen mountaineer, he combined the pastime with studies of glacial motion in the Swiss Alps. Towards the end of his life Tyndall's health was poor and he died in 1893 from an accidental overdose of chloral hydrate, an imsomnia cure widely misused in the late 19th century.