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James Dewar was born #OnThisDay in 1842.

The Scottish chemist and physicist co-directed the Davy-Faraday Research Lab at the Ri from the end of the 19th Century. He is best known for inventing the Dewar flask aka vacuum flask aka Thermos.

Though he sadly didn’t profit from its widespread popularity, as he didn’t patent his invention before Thermos started using the design ()

Dewar’s flask aided his work into the liquefaction of then-so-called permanent gases like hydrogen and helium, as he could work at temperatures close to absolute zero ❄️

Whilst at the Ri he built machinery to yield high quantities of liquid oxygen, and showed that liquid oxygen and liquid ozone are attracted to the poles of a magnet

Watch our liquid oxygen magnetism demo here ➡ https://youtu.be/rz57PJToGEs

Dewar created liquid hydrogen for the first time in 1898, solid hydrogen in 1899, and he attempted to create liquid helium in the early 20th century

Click through an interactive version of this photo for a deeper look at his lecture on liquid hydrogen…

He also gave 9 series of Christmas Lectures for children! On topics ranging wide from ‘A Soap Bubble’ to 'The Story of a Meteorite’ to 'The Chemistry of Light and Photography’.