author
Balfour Stewart
1828–1887
A Scottish physicist and meteorologist, he helped uncover how radiant heat works and became one of the key scientific figures behind Kew Observatory and Victorian-era solar and magnetic research.
2 Audiobooks
The conservation of energy
by Balfour Stewart
The unseen universe : or, physical speculations on a future state
by Balfour Stewart, Peter Guthrie Tait
About the author
Born in Edinburgh in 1828, he first spent years in business before turning fully to science. After returning to his studies, he worked with James David Forbes in Edinburgh and went on to build a major scientific career through careful experiments on heat, magnetism, and the atmosphere.
Stewart is best remembered for his work on radiant heat, which earned him the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society in 1868. He served as director of Kew Observatory from 1859 to 1870, where he was closely involved in research on terrestrial magnetism and solar physics, and later became professor of physics at Owens College, Manchester.
He died in 1887, but his reputation lasted well beyond his lifetime. His writing and research helped connect laboratory physics with the wider study of weather, the Sun, and the Earth, making him an important bridge between Victorian physics and early geophysics.