GEOLOGIST

William Nicol

1770 - 1851

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William Nicol FRSE FCS (1768? – 2 September 1851) was a Scottish geologist and physicist who invented the Nicol prism, the first device for obtaining plane-polarized light, in 1828. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. William Nicol is the 51st most popular geologist (up from 66th in 2019), the 3,507th most popular biography from United Kingdom (up from 4,197th in 2019) and the 10th most popular British Geologist.

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Among GEOLOGISTS

Among geologists, William Nicol ranks 51 out of 90Before him are Lawrence Lambe, Alfred Lacroix, Henryk Arctowski, Carl Friedrich Schmidt, Niles Eldredge, and Marcel Alexandre Bertrand. After him are Julius von Haast, Luigi Palmieri, John Phillips, Gerard De Geer, Paul Niggli, and Archibald Geikie.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1770, William Nicol ranks 40Before him are Étienne Pivert de Senancour, Alexander Ivanovich Ostermann-Tolstoy, Gabriel Jean Joseph Molitor, Georges Mouton, William Huskisson, and Princess Louise of Orange-Nassau. After him are Albrecht Berblinger, James Hogg, Thomas Phillips, and David Thompson. Among people deceased in 1851, William Nicol ranks 42Before him are Ramón Freire, Manuel Gómez Pedraza, Esteban Echeverría, Carl Friedrich von Ledebour, Leopold II, Prince of Lippe, and Dawud Pasha of Baghdad. After him are Andrés Quintana Roo, Karl Freiherr von Müffling, Giovanni Berchet, Mizuno Tadakuni, Joel Roberts Poinsett, and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

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Others Deceased in 1851

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, William Nicol ranks 3,508 out of 8,785Before him are Roger Rees (1944), Frederick W. Lanchester (1868), Henry Edward Manning (1808), Jon Pertwee (1919), Jeremy Northam (1961), and Samson of Dol (490). After him are Alex Kingston (1963), Grace Elliott (1754), Trevor Francis (1954), John Scott Haldane (1860), Ol Parker (1969), and Edward Woodward (1930).

Among GEOLOGISTS In United Kingdom

Among geologists born in United Kingdom, William Nicol ranks 10Before him are Eduard Suess (1831), Gideon Mantell (1790), William Smith (1769), Adam Sedgwick (1785), William Buckland (1784), and Arthur Holmes (1890). After him are John Phillips (1800), Archibald Geikie (1835), Henry Clifton Sorby (1826), Charles Lapworth (1842), Joseph Thomson (1858), and Robert Jameson (1774).