Reference
- Faraday, Michael (1791-1867)English physicist and chemist who is often regarded as the greatest experimental scientist of the 1800s. He made pioneering contributions to electricity, inventing the electric motor, electric generator and the transformer, and discovering electromagnetic induction and the laws of electrolysis. He also discovered benzene and was the first to observe that the plane of polarization of light is rotated in a magnetic field.
Faraday was born in Newington, Surrey, on 22 September 1791. His father was a poor blacksmith, who went to London to seek work in the year that Faraday was born. Faraday received only a rudimentary education as a child and although he was literate, he gained little knowledge of mathematics. At the age of 14, he became an apprentice to a bookbinder in London and began to read voraciously. The article on electricity in the Encyclopedia Britannica fascinated him in particular, for it presented the view that electricity is a kind of vibration, an idea that was to remain with Faraday. He also read the works of Antoine Lavoisier and became interested in chemistry, and carried out what scientific experiments he could put together with his limited resources. He was aided by a manual dexterity gained from his trade, which also stood him in great stead in his later experimental work.
In 1810 Faraday was introduced to the City Philosophical Society and there received a basic grounding in science, attending lectures on most aspects of physics and chemistry and carrying out some experimental work. He also attended the Royal Institution, where he was enthralled by the lectures and demonstrations given by Humphry Davy. He made notes eagerly, assembling them at work into finely bound books. In 1812 Faraday came to the end of his apprenticeship and prepared to devote himself to his trade, not expecting to make a career in science. Almost immediately, however, there came an extraordinary stroke of luck. Davy was temporarily blinded by an explosion in a chemistry experiment and asked Faraday to help him until he regained his sight. When he recovered, Faraday sent Davy the bound notes of his lectures. Impressed by the young man, Davy marked him out as his next permanent assistant at the Royal Institution and Faraday took up this post in 1813.
This was remarkably good fortune for Faraday, because Davy was a man of wide-ranging interests and great scientific insight as well as a brilliant exponent of ideas. Furthermore, Davy undertook a tour of France and Italy 1813-15 to visit the leading scientists of the day, including the pioneer of current electricity Alessandro Volta. Faraday accompanied Davy, gaining an immense amount of knowledge, and on his return to London threw himself wholeheartedly into scientific research...
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Perspectives
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday (1791-1867), the son of a blacksmith, described his education as "little more than the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at a common day-school." Yet from such basics, he became one of the most prolific and wide-ranging experimental scientists who ever lived. As abookbinder's apprentice with a voracious appetite for learning, he read every book he got his hands on. In 1812 he attended a series of chemistry lectures by Sir Humphry Davy at London's prestigious Royal Institution. He took copious and careful notes, and, in the hopes of landing a scientific job,bound them and sent them to the lecturer. Davy was impressed enough to hire the 21-year-old as a laboratory assistant.In his first decade at the Institution, Faraday discovered benzene, isobutylene, and two chlorides of carbon. But despite these and other accomplishments in chemistry, he is chiefly remembered for his work in physics. In 1831 he proved that magnetism could generate an electric current, therebyestablishing the field of electromagnetism and leading to the invention of the dynamo. In addition to his extraordinary scientific activities, Faraday was a leader in his church, whose faith and wish to serve guided him throughout his career. An engaging public speaker, he gave popular lectures onscientific subjects, and helped found a tradition of scientific education for children and laypeople that continues to this day.Oxford Portraits in Science is an ongoing series of scientific biographies for young adults. Written by top scholars and writers, each biography examines the personality of its subject as well as the thought process leading to his or her discoveries. These illustrated biographies combine accessibletechnical information with compelling personal stories to portray the scientists whose work has shaped our understanding of the natural world.
The Forces of Matter
These lectures by a famous inventor offer an easy-to-understand introduction to the interactions of the universe's physical forces. Michael Faraday delighted in introducing young minds to scientific inquiry, and he geared these talks to audiences of high school age and older. His topics include gravitation, cohesion, chemical affinity, heat, magnetism, and electricity. 1993 edition.
Michael Faraday
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Fry visits Faraday's laboratory and discusses his experiments to find the connection between electricity and magnetism; many of his contemporaries dismissed his ideas.
Advancing Technology: Michael Faraday
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowAdam-Hart Davis sits in Faraday's lab and discusses the importance of Faraday's inventions. Michael Faraday grew up during the Industrial Revolution, educating himself and attending lectures at the Royal Institution.
Michael Faraday
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowVolta discovered the battery at the turn of the 19th century. Most scientists thought gravity, static electricity, and magnetism all acted instantaneously. Michael Faraday hypothesized electromagnetic induction.
Online Resources
- Celebrating Michael Faraday's Discovery of BenzenIn 1825, Michael Faraday, working in his workshop at the Royal Institution, discovered what he called bicarburet of hydrogen, now known as benzene. One hundred years later, his discovery was celebrated at the Royal Institution by a host of national and international delegates. Just over thirty years after Faraday's discovery, the industrial importance of benzene was realised with the establishment of the synthetic dyestuffs industry. In this paper, the Faraday Benzene Centenary Celebration is discussed in detail and compared with other celebrations that have linked benzene with colour, in particular the 1890 celebration in Germany of the benzene ring formula and the 1906 celebration of the foundation of the coal-tar dye industry. It is instructive to review the different economic and political agendas underlying these events, each within the context of a particular time and place.
- The Correspondence of Michael FaradayThe nineteenth-century chemist and natural philosopher Michael Faraday (1791--1867) is widely regarded as the father of British electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. It is rather remarkable - and no small feat – that the son of a blacksmith and a member of a religious dissenter group acquired a prominent position within the early nineteenth-century naturalist community in London. In addition to his many significant contributions to the physical sciences, he was an important figure during the first half of the nineteenth century at the Royal Institution in London, and a key scientific consultant for the British government. In Frank James' important six-volume collection, The Correspondence of Michael Faraday he beautifully illustrates the life and career of this eminent nineteenth-century figure. Each volume contains a short biographical vignette of Faraday's working life between 1811--1867. It is a rich resource for scholars not only interested in Faraday, but also in the context of nineteenth-century science generally. The six volume set provides a window into the almost weekly activities of Faraday, with information pertaining to his social circle, research activities, and personal and public opinions on matters connected to subjects ranging from natural philosophy and learned societies in London, to Christianity and British industry.
- Michael Faraday’s “Historical Sketch of Electro‐Magnetism” and the Theory‐Dependence of ExperimentationThis article explores Michael Faraday’s “Historical Sketch of Electro‐Magnetism” as a fruitful source for understanding the epistemic significance of experimentation. In this work Faraday provides a catalog of the numerous experimental and theoretical developments in the early history of electromagnetism. He also describes methods that enable experimentalists to dissociate experimental results from the theoretical commitments generating their research. An analysis of the methods articulated in this sketch is instructive for confronting epistemological worries about the theory‐dependence of experimentation.
Electromotive Force and Free Energy
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Meet three scientists who laid the foundations for electrochemistry. Robert Millikan measured the charge on the electron. Michael Faraday discovered the relationship between free energy and electrical potential. Walther Nernst formulated the relationship between redox potential and equilibrium constants. Their contributions paved the way for what came next.