Henry Clifton Sorby lived all his life in Sheffield, England. He never married, and inherited enough money from his father to pursue a life of independent scholarship and scientific research. He made major contributions to microscopy applying the newly discovered polarized light technique to the study of rocks, meteorites and metals, earning the titles “Father of Petrography” and “Founder of Metallography”. Later he worked on spectrum analysis, and coastal marine biology, using his own 35-ton vessel.
Sorby never attended university: his main forum for the exchange of ideas was the local Literary and Philosophical Society, though from the beginning of his active research career (in 1851) he presented papers to the Geological Society of London, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and other well-known societies. Later in life he helped found the Royal Microscopical Society (1874) and the Mineralogical Society (1876: he was the first president), and was active in the...
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© 1978 Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Inc.
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Middleton, G.V. (1978). Sedimentologists: Henry Clifton Sorby (1826–1908). In: Sedimentology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31079-7_204
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31079-7_204
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