Cambridge CB2 1TQ, United Kingdom
Cumming entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1797, graduating tenth wrangler in 1801.
Cambridge CB2 1TQ, United Kingdom
Cumming entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1797, graduating tenth wrangler in 1801.
https://www.amazon.com/dElectricite-Demonferrand-Comprehending-Discoveries-Improvements/dp/B000I180P8/?tag=2022091-20
1827
Cumming was born on September 26, 1777, in Piccadilly, London, but his home moved to the Buxton Hall Hotel (now called Old Hall Hotel) in Buxton where his father was the hotelier from 1791. His father rented the hall, which had been a home to Mary, Queen of Scots, from the 5th Duke of Devonshire. His father was considered socially more than a mere hotelier, and the hotel's clientele included bishops and visiting aristocracy.
Cumming was first sent to school at Marlborough. He then entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1797, graduating tenth wrangler in 1801.
Cumming was elected professor of chemistry in Trinity College in 1815, a position he held until the year before his death. He was apparently excellent as a teacher. Cumming’s scientific accomplishments, however, were limited - reportedly by ill health and lack of ambition - to a ten-year period early in his career: his published works span the years 1822-1833.
He became fascinated by the developments in electromagnetism following Oersted’s experiments and independently invented the galvanometer, describing it in greater detail than either Schweigger or Poggendorff. P. G. Tait gave Cumming credit for the independent discovery of thermoelectricity, but there seems to be no good reason to accept this.
A brief announcement of Thomas Johann Seebeck’s discovery appeared in the Annals of Philosophy in 1822; Cumming’s first description was in the same journal in the following year. On the other hand, Seebeck’s detailed paper was not available until 1825. By then Cumming had compared the thermoelectric order of metals with the voltaic and conductivity series, noting the lack of any apparent connection. He also recorded the inversion effect which occurs with certain couples at high temperatures (Seebeck had remarked on this, as had A. C. Becquerel); this anomalous behavior was finally explained by William Thomson on the basis of thermodynamic arguments and the assumption of the “Thomson effect.” Thomson had his attention drawn to this phenomenon by Becquerel’s paper but later recognized Cumming’s priority; he apparently never realized that it had been described in Seebeck’s original publication.
In the 1840s his lectures did not attract the same audiences, but it must be remembered that they were not compulsory to students if they were not taking medicine. Students at Cambridge could graduate in mathematics or in classics without taking any "professional" lectures in additional subjects like chemistry. Moreover, students were coming under increasing pressure to improve their performance in the core subjects.
Cumming was active in the founding of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and from 1824 to 1826 acted as its fourth president.
Royal Society.
It is not known, whether Cumming had a wife and kids.
