James Dewar was born in Kincardine, Fife, Scotland, on September 20, 1842. He attended the University of Edinburgh and developed a wide range of interests including electricity, chemistry, spectroscopy, and the measurement of high temperature. He was served as professor at both Cambridge University and the Royal Institution in London, England.

In 1874 Dewar published two papers: The Latent Heat of Liquid Gases and A New Method of Obtaining a Very Perfect Vacua. He had discovered that when charcoal was cooled it became extremely efficient at absorbing molecules. That meant that after a vacuum had been created with an air pump, charcoal could be used to absorb any remaining molecules, creating a better vacuum. This improved vacuum would come in very handy for Dewar in the future.

With George D. Liveing, Cambridge professor of chemistry, Dewar published seventy-eight papers on spectroscopy between 1877 and 1904. They discovered the absorption spectrum of many elements...