The Last Man who Knew Everything: Thomas Young

No one has given the polymath Thomas Young (1773-1829) the all-round examination he so richly deserves-until now. Celebrated biographer Andrew Robinson portrays a man who solved mystery after mystery in the face of ridicule and rejection, and never sought fame.

As a physicist, Young challenged the theories of Isaac Newton and proved that light is a wave. As a physician, he showed how the eye focuses and proposed the three-colour theory of vision, only confirmed a century and a half later. As...