198 GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



The short Uves enjoyed by Fraunhofer and Fresnel coin- 

 cided almost to a year; accordingly their work is practically 

 contemporaneous. In another respect also they were alike, 

 inasmuch as neither had any previous training whatever in 

 preparation for their extraordinary achievements; it is thus 

 all the clearer that these resulted entirely from their own 

 innate gifts, urged on by which, they acquired the necessary 

 preliminary knowledge on their own account. 



Thomas Young, who was about fifteen years older than 

 Fraunhofer and Fresnel, had studied chiefly medicine at 

 several universities, and then became a doctor in London. 

 This however was by no means sufficient for his active 

 mind, and as a rich man he was always at liberty to follow 

 up his manifold interests. Among these was the study of 

 the writings of Newton and Huygens, and this led him to 

 interpret Newton's elaborate observations on the colours of 

 thin plates and on diffraction, according to Huygens' assump- 

 tion of the wave nature of light. In this, by making use of 

 the knowledge of sound and water waves already provided by 

 Newton, he succeeded so excellently, that Fraunhofer and 

 Fresnel found in the writings of Young a well prepared 

 foundation for their further investigations. 



Fraunhofer was born at Straubing on the Danube, as the 

 tenth child of a master glassmaker, who lived in poor cir- 

 cumstances. An orphan at an early age, he was apprenticed 

 at the age of twelve to a mirror maker and glass polisher in 

 Munich, where he also had to be of service in the house and 

 kitchen, being bound for six years, since he could not pay a 

 premium. After two years the house of his master col- 

 lapsed, and Fraunhofer was buried in the ruins. As by a 

 miracle he was extricated uninjured from the ruins, and this 

 event so excited the sympathy of the ruling Prince, that the 

 latter made a handsome present of money to the poor and 

 weakly boy; he also received support in the matter of books, 



