Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

John Herschel the Polymath

That hardly tells the story. He was an astronomer, botanist, chemist, mathematician, philosopher and photography tinkerer.  He discovered that hyposulphite of soda, more often simply called hypo in the world of photography, could be used to fix pictures and make them permanent, a bit of information that he passed on to both Daguerre and Talbot. His wife recalls a visit by Talbot:

I happen to remember well the visit to Slough of Mr Fox Talbot, who came to show Herschel his beautiful little pictures of Ferns and Laces taken by his new process. - when something was said about the difficulty of fixing the pictures, Herschel said "Let me have this one for a few minutes" and after a short time he returned and gave the picture to Mr Fox Talbot saying "I think you'll find that fixed" - this was the beginning of the hyposulphite plan of fixing.

He wrote significant papers on photography in which he coined for the first time the word photography, negative and positive. He was the first to make use of glass plates for negatives when he photographed his telescope in September 1839.