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Michael Faraday

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Chemists

   CAPTION: Michael Faraday

   Michael Faraday from a photograph by John Watkins, British Library
   Michael Faraday from a photograph by John Watkins, British Library
   Born September 22, 1791
   Newington Butts, England
   Died August 25, 1867
   Hampton Court, London, England
   Residence England
   Nationality English
   Field Physicist and Chemist
   Institution Royal Institution
   Doctoral Advisor Humphry Davy
   Known for Electromagnetic induction
   Notable Prizes Royal Medal (1846)
   Religion Sandemanian
   Note that Faraday did not have a tertiary education, however Humphry
   Davy is considered to be the equivalent of his doctoral advisor in
   terms of academic mentorship.

   Michael Faraday, FRS ( September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was an
   English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the
   terminology of that time) who contributed significantly to the fields
   of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. He established that magnetism
   could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying
   relationship between the two phenomena.

   Some historians of science refer to him as the best experimentalist in
   the history of science. It was largely due to his efforts that
   electricity became viable for use in technology. The SI unit of
   capacitance, the farad, is named after him, as is the Faraday constant,
   the charge on a mole of electrons (about 96,485 coulombs). Faraday's
   law of induction states that a magnetic field changing in time creates
   a proportional electromotive force.

   He held the post of Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal
   Institution of Great Britain. Faraday was the first, and most famous,
   holder of this position to which he was appointed for life.

Career outline

   Michael Faraday, detail from portrait by Thomas Phillips c1841-1842
   Enlarge
   Michael Faraday, detail from portrait by Thomas Phillips c1841-1842

   Michael Faraday was born in Newington Butts, near present-day Elephant
   and Castle in South London, England. His family was extremely poor; his
   father, James Faraday, was a Yorkshire blacksmith who suffered
   ill-health throughout his life. After the most basic of school
   educations, Faraday had to educate himself. At fourteen he became
   apprenticed to a local bookbinder and book seller George Riebau and,
   during his seven-year apprenticeship, read many books, including Isaac
   Watts' The Improvement of the Mind, the principles and suggestions
   contained therein he enthusiastically implemented. He developed an
   interest in science and specifically electricity. In particular, he was
   inspired by the book Conversations in Chemistry by Jane Marcet.

   At the age of twenty, in 1812, at the end of his apprenticeship,
   Faraday attended lectures by the eminent English chemist and physicist
   Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution and Royal Society, and John
   Tatum, founder of the City Philosophical Society. Many tickets for
   these lectures were given to Faraday by William Dance (one of the
   founders of the Royal Philharmonic Society). Afterwards, Faraday sent
   Davy a three hundred page book based on notes taken during the
   lectures. Davy's reply was immediate, kind and favorable. When Davy
   damaged his eyesight in an accident with nitrogen trichloride, he
   decided to employ Faraday as a secretary. When John Payne, one of the
   Royal Institution's assistants, was sacked, the now Sir Humphry Davy
   was asked to find a replacement. He appointed Faraday as Chemical
   Assistant at the Royal Institution on 1 March 1813.

   In the class-based English society of the time, Faraday was not
   considered a gentleman. When Davy went on a long tour to the continent
   in 1813-5, his valet did not wish to go. Faraday was going as Davy's
   scientific assistant, and was asked to act as Davy's valet until a
   replacement could be found in Paris. Davy failed to find a replacement,
   and Faraday was forced to fill the role of valet as well as assistant
   throughout the trip. Davy's wife, Jane Apreece, refused to treat
   Faraday as an equal (making him travel outside the coach, eat with the
   servants, etc.) and generally made Faraday so miserable that he
   contemplated returning to England alone and giving up science
   altogether. The trip did, however, give him access to the European
   scientific elite and a host of stimulating ideas.

   His sponsor and mentor was John 'Mad Jack' Fuller, who created the
   Fullerian Professorship of Chemistry at the Royal Institution.

   Faraday was a devout Christian and a member of the small Sandemanian
   denomination, an offshoot of the Church of Scotland. He later served
   two terms as an elder in the group's church.

   Faraday married Sarah Barnard (1800-1879) on June 2, 1821, although
   they would never have children. They met through attending the
   Sandemanian church.

   He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1824, appointed
   director of the laboratory in 1825; and in 1833 he was appointed
   Fullerian professor of chemistry in the institution for life, without
   the obligation to deliver lectures.

Scientific achievements

   Michael Faraday holding a glass bar, detail of engraving by Henry
   Adlard, based on an earlier photograph by Maull & Polyblank c 1857.
   Enlarge
   Michael Faraday holding a glass bar, detail of engraving by Henry
   Adlard, based on an earlier photograph by Maull & Polyblank c 1857.

Chemistry

   Faraday's earliest chemical work was as an assistant to Davy. He made a
   special study of chlorine, and discovered two new chlorides of carbon.
   He also made the first rough experiments on the diffusion of gases, a
   phenomenon first pointed out by John Dalton, the physical importance of
   which was more fully brought to light by Thomas Graham and Joseph
   Loschmidt. He succeeded in liquefying several gases; he investigated
   the alloys of steel, and produced several new kinds of glass intended
   for optical purposes. A specimen of one of these heavy glasses
   afterwards became historically important as the substance in which
   Faraday detected the rotation of the plane of polarisation of light
   when the glass was placed in a magnetic field, and also as the
   substance which was first repelled by the poles of the magnet. He also
   endeavoured, with some success, to make the general methods of
   chemistry, as distinguished from its results, the subject of special
   study and of popular exposition.

   He invented the earliest form of what was to become the Bunsen burner,
   which is used almost universally in science laboratories as a
   convenient source of heat.

   Faraday worked extensively in the field of chemistry, discovering
   chemical substances such as benzene (which he called bicarburet of
   hydrogen), inventing the system of oxidation numbers, and liquefying
   gases such as chlorine. He prepared the first clathrate hydrate.
   Faraday also discovered the laws of electrolysis and popularized
   terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion, terms largely
   created by William Whewell. For these accomplishments, many modern
   chemists regard Faraday as one of the finest experimental scientists in
   history.

Electricity

   His greatest work was with electricity. The first experiment which he
   recorded was the construction of a voltaic pile with seven halfpence
   pieces, stacked together with seven disks of sheet zinc, and six pieces
   of paper moistened with salt water. With this pile he decomposed
   sulphate of magnesia (first letter to Abbott, July 12, 1812).
   Michael Faraday - statue in Savoy Place, London
   Enlarge
   Michael Faraday - statue in Savoy Place, London

   In 1821, soon after the Danish physicist and chemist, Hans Christian
   Ørsted discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetism, Davy and British
   scientist William Hyde Wollaston tried but failed to design an electric
   motor. Faraday, having discussed the problem with the two men, went on
   to build two devices to produce what he called electromagnetic
   rotation: a continuous circular motion from the circular magnetic force
   around a wire and a wire extending into a pool of mercury with a magnet
   placed inside would rotate around the magnet if supplied with current
   from a chemical battery. The latter device is known as a homopolar
   motor. These experiments and inventions form the foundation of modern
   electromagnetic technology. Unwisely, Faraday published his results
   without acknowledging his debt to Wollaston and Davy, and the resulting
   controversy caused Faraday to withdraw from electromagnetic research
   for several years.

   At this stage, there is also evidence to suggest that Davy may have
   been trying to slow Faraday’s rise as a scientist (or natural
   philosopher as it was known then). In 1825, for instance, Davy set him
   onto optical glass experiments, which progressed for six years with no
   great results. It was not until Davy's death, in 1829, that Faraday
   stopped these fruitless tasks and moved on to endeavors that were more
   worthwhile. Two years later, in 1831, he began his great series of
   experiments in which he discovered electromagnetic induction, though
   the discovery may have been anticipated by the work of Francesco
   Zantedeschi. His breakthrough came when he wrapped two insulated coils
   of wire around a massive iron ring, bolted to a chair, and found that
   upon passing a current through one coil, a momentary current was
   induced in the other coil. The iron ring-coil apparatus is still on
   display at the Royal Institution. In subsequent experiments he found
   that if he moved a magnet through a loop of wire, an electric current
   flowed in the wire. The current also flowed if the loop was moved over
   a stationary magnet.
   The title page of The Chemical History of a Candle (1861)
   Enlarge
   The title page of The Chemical History of a Candle (1861)

   His demonstrations established that a changing magnetic field produces
   an electric field. This relation was mathematically modelled by
   Faraday's law, which subsequently went on to become one of the four
   Maxwell equations. These in turn have evolved into the generalization
   known today as field theory.

   Faraday later used the principle to construct the electric dynamo, the
   ancestor of modern power generators.

   In 1839 he completed a series of experiments aimed at investigating the
   fundamental nature of electricity. Faraday used "static," used
   batteries, and used "animal electricity" to produce electrostatic
   attraction, electrolysis, magnetism, etc. He concluded that, contrary
   to scientific opinion of the time, the divisions between the various
   "kinds" of electricity were illusory. Faraday instead proposed that
   only a single "electricity" exists, and the changing values of quantity
   and intensity (voltage and charge) would produce different groups of
   phenomena.

   Near the end of his career Faraday proposed that electromagnetic forces
   extended into the empty space around the conductor. This idea was
   rejected by his fellow scientists, and Faraday did not live to see this
   idea eventually accepted. Faraday's concept of lines of flux emanating
   from charged bodies and magnets provided a way to visualize electric
   and magnetic fields. That mental model was crucial to the successful
   development of electromechanical devices which dominated engineering
   and industry for the remainder of the 19th century.

   In 1845 he discovered the phenomenon that he named diamagnetism, and
   what is now called the Faraday effect: The plane of polarization of
   linearly polarized light propagated through a material medium can be
   rotated by the application of an external magnetic field aligned in the
   propagation direction. He wrote in his notebook, "I have at last
   succeeded in illuminating a magnetic curve or line of force and in
   magnetising a ray of light". This established that magnetic force and
   light were related.

   In his work on static electricity, Faraday demonstrated that the charge
   only resided on the exterior of a charged conductor, and exterior
   charge had no influence on anything enclosed within a conductor. This
   is because the exterior charges redistribute such that the interior
   fields due to them cancel. This shielding effect is used in what is now
   known as a Faraday cage.

   Despite his excellence as an experimentalist, his mathematical ability
   did not extend so far as trigonometry or any but the simplest algebra.
   However, his experimental work was consolidated by the able James Clerk
   Maxwell, who developed his equations which lie at the base of all
   modern theories of electromagnetic phenomena. Faraday, nevertheless,
   possessed the gift of the ability to present his ideas in clear and
   simple language.

Later life

   In 1848, as a result of representations by the Prince Consort, Michael
   Faraday was awarded a Grace and favour house in Hampton Court, Surrey
   free of all expenses or upkeep. This was the Master Mason's House,
   later called Faraday House, and now No.37 Hampton Court Road. In 1858
   he retired to live there.

   During his lifetime, Faraday rejected a knighthood and twice refused to
   become President of the Royal Society.

   He died at his house at Hampton Court on August 25, 1867. He has a
   memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey, near Isaac Newton's tomb, but he
   turned down burial there and is interred in the Sandemanian plot in
   Highgate Cemetery.

Publications

Published Works by Michael Faraday

     * Chemical Manipulation, being Instructions to Students in Chemistry
       (1 vol., John Murray, 1st ed. 1827, 2nd 1830, 3rd 1842);
     * Experimental Researches in Electricity, vols. i. and ii., Richard
       and John Edward Taylor, vols. i. and ii. (1844 and 1847); vol. iii.
       (1844); vol. iii. Richard Taylor and William Francis (1855);
     * Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, Taylor and
       Francis (1859);
     * A Course of Six Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle
       (edited by W. Crookes) (Griffin, Bohn & Co., 1861);
     * On the Various Forces in Nature (edited by W. Crookes) (Chatto &
       Windus, 1873).
     * A Course of 6 lectures on the various forces of matter and their
       relations to each other. edited by William Crookes(1861).
     * His Diary edited by T. Martin was published in eight volumes (1932
       - 36)

Biographies

     * Tyndall, John, Faraday as a Discoverer, (Longmans, 1st ed. 1868,
       2nd ed. 1870);
     * Jones, Bence Dr. , secretary of the Royal Institution, The Life and
       Letters of Faraday in 2 vols. (Longmans, 1870);
     * Gladstone, J. H. , Ph.D., F.R.S., Michael Faraday, (Macmillan,
       1872);
     * Thompson, S. P., Michael Faraday; his Life and Work, (1898). (J. C.
       M.)

Quotations

     * "Nothing is too wonderful to be true."
     * "Work. Finish. Publish." — his well-known advice to the young
       William Crookes
     * "The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly."
     * Regarding the hereafter, "Speculations? I have none. I am resting
       on certainties. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that
       he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against
       that day."
     * "Next Sabbath day (the 22nd) I shall complete my 70th year. I can
       hardly think of myself so old."
     * Above the doorways of the Pfahler Hall of Science at Ursinus
       College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, there is a stone inscription
       of a quote attributed to Michael Faraday which reads "but still
       try, for who knows what is possible..."

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