Thomas Young: The Guy Who Knew Everything?

Ever think one person could know, like, everything? In our super specialized world, where everyone’s got their own thing, it feels totally impossible. Right? But then, there’s Thomas Young. A proper genius whose brain wasn’t just big; it went super deep into nearly every single field. This isn’t some old-timey myth. This is a real story about a guy who seriously was the “last man who knew everything.”

Thomas Young: A Super Smart Guy Through the Years

Forget the fancy scholar stuff. Young was like a walking Wikipedia. A straight-up smarty-pants. Before science got all chopped up into tiny pieces, he dove headfirst into physics, medicine, and languages. With almost superhuman skill. People back then called him a “hezerfen,” an old word for someone good at tons of different arts and sciences.

Think of the real legends: Da Vinci. Newton. Archimedes. Young’s right there, among that rare bunch. He wasn’t just smart. He pushed boundaries. In brand-new fields or ones that had been around forever.

The Double-Slit Experiment: Light’s a Wave, Man!

Okay, picture this: November 1803. London, at the Royal Society. Young’s in front of a bunch of smart people. He’s explaining this super simple experiment. You could really do it yourself with sunlight. That’s how the double-slit experiment got started.

This famous setup. So simple, but mind-blowing. It proved light wasn’t just tiny particles—Newton’s big idea—but actually waves. Young had been watching ripples a swan made in a college pond, and he had a hunch about waves messing with each other. His experiment proved it. Challenging science way deep down.

A young guy disproving Newton? Science folks totally scoffed at first. Big time. But Young was onto something huge. A concept that would much later become a core part of quantum physics. Decades before anyone even thought about quantum stuff.

Beyond Light: Seeing Colors & How Things Stretch

Young’s brain didn’t stop at light acting like a wave. He also had this awesome theory about how we see color. He figured our eyes see color by mixing three main ones. So our eyes must have three different types of light-catchers. Each sensitive to a different kind of light.

And he was totally right. Later on, scientists saw humans actually have three types of cone cells. A doctor by training, Young just connected light studying with biology. No problem.

And another thing: there’s Young’s Modulus. Not just a fancy name. It’s how we measure how bendy a material is. You know, how much can a bridge bend without snapping? Will a building stay up? This formula, which calculates how much a material stretches under pressure, is still used everywhere today. It even helps tune guitars and stuff. Make sure they sound right. Oh, he also figured out how tides work. Connected the moon and sun’s pull to ocean levels. Wild, right?

Cracking the Rosetta Stone Code

Maybe his most celebrated hobby was helping figure out the Rosetta Stone. It got dragged to the British Museum. This old decree from 196 BC was written three ways: weird hieroglyphs, some unknown writing called demotic, and Greek. For hundreds of years, everyone thought hieroglyphs were just pictures. A huge mistake.

Young cracked it. Using the Greek as his key, he found these little oval outlines that had the name Ptolemy. This showed some hieroglyphs were actually sounds! He published a paper after that. He gave them an alphabet for the demotic writing and translations for tons of hieroglyphs and demotic words.

Yeah, Jean-François Champollion later built on Young’s work—and kind of took all the credit at first. But a while later, Young’s early breakthroughs were finally acknowledged. His big monument at Westminster Abbey even says he deciphered ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Finally, justice for a super smart guy.

The Royal Society & Royal Institution: Where Smart People Hung Out

Young was around during a seriously cool time for science. He loved being in that brainy atmosphere. Places like the Royal Society and the Royal Institution were super important. The Royal Society, started way back in 1663 by people like Christopher Wren, followed a hardcore motto: “Nullius in verba,” which means, “don’t just believe it because someone said it.” They pushed for truth through experiments. Not just old ideas. They even put out Newton’s Principia.

Later on, the Royal Institution, set up in 1799, wanted to share science with everyone. They had legendary talks by people like Michael Faraday. This was the ultimate hangout for science minds. Young, a Royal Society member at 21, and a professor at the Royal Institution at 24, was right in the middle of it all. Way before Faraday was famous.

Kinda Weird Beginnings: A Young Genius’s Life

Born in 1773. The last of ten kids in an English Quaker family. Thomas Young’s childhood was anything but typical. Quakers couldn’t swear oaths. So, they were barred from big universities like Oxford, Cambridge. But he didn’t care. Young was mostly self-taught. A language wizard from when he was ridiculously little.

He could read by three. By four? Read the entire Bible twice. Fourteen? Fluent in over a dozen languages! Greek. Latin. Hebrew. Arabic. Even Turkish. Some were ancient, dead languages!

His super strict Quaker family said no dancing, no theater, no flute playing. But Young did it anyway. He studied medicine in Edinburgh and Göttingen. Eventually got to Cambridge. There, he dropped the strict rules. Embraced the bigger world. And a good flute song, absolutely.

Acknowledged Way Later, But Still a Legend

Young, who died in 1829 at only 55 from a heart problem, didn’t always get the credit he earned during his life. Going against a titan like Newton? That was costly. But history, as it does, has been good to him. Today, he’s loved by physicists, language experts, doctors, and engineers. He lent his name to medical issues. Helped with how fluids move. And even tuned music tools.

He really was one of the last generalists. A mind so huge it just seems crazy now. His incredible work keeps inspiring people. Reminding us the answers to totally different problems are sometimes all linked up. In the mind of a true polymath.

About Thomas Young: Quick Facts

Q: So, Thomas Young and the Rosetta Stone. What’s the deal?
A: Thomas Young was a key player. He was one of the first smart people to seriously start cracking the Rosetta Stone. It had hieroglyphic, Demotic, and ancient Greek writing. He correctly figured out that some hieroglyphs were phonetic. He used the Greek text, saw Ptolemy’s name, and that was a massive help for everyone later.

Q: What’s the big deal with Young’s double-slit experiment?
A: Young’s double-slit experiment happened in 1803. It totally showed light acts like a wave. You see an interference pattern when light goes through two tiny slits. This slammed Isaac Newton’s particle idea about light. It was a huge step for understanding light. And set up for future quantum physics.

Q: What places did Young teach at or belong to?
A: Thomas Young joined the fancy Royal Society when he was just 21. He also taught at the Royal Institution. He gave over a hundred public talks on science there. Long before Michael Faraday became a big deal, even.