Davy notebook project paints complicated picture of influential chemist
By 
Jamie Durrani2024-05-15T08:30:00
Humphry Davy was a prolific scientist, but could also be petty, selfish and prejudiced
As a project to transcribe and digitise dozens of Humphry Davy’s notebooks draws to a close, researchers are piecing together a complicated picture of one chemistry’s most influential figures. The Davy Notebooks Project, led by academics at Lancaster University, UK, has brought new insight into the life and mind of the celebrated scientist, who discovered more chemical elements than any other person before or since. By analysing Davy’s writings, the researchers have gathered firsthand evidence of the scientist’s excitement upon his discovery of potassium, his fondness for laughing gas and love of fine tailoring, as well as a darker, less well known side of one of chemistry’s giants.
The Davy Notebook Project began back in March 2019, when a pilot project recruited volunteers via the citizen science platform Zooniverse to transcribe five of Davy’s notebooks.
‘We did it in two months or so, it was really, really quick,’ says Sharon Ruston who heads up the project team. ‘We actually got eight notebooks done in the time that we had – and so it was a huge success.’