Download Michael Faraday by Cristian Hunter

Michael Faraday
The English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday, born in Sept. 22,
1791,and died in Aug. 25, 1867. He is known for his pioneering
experiments in electricity and magnetism. Several concepts that he derived
directly from experiments, such as lines of magnetic force, have become
common ideas in modern physics.
Faraday was born at Newington, Surrey, near London. He received
little more than a primary education, at the age of 14 he was apprenticed to
a bookbinder. He became interested in the physical and chemical works of
the time. After hearing a lecture by Humphry Davy, he sent Davy the notes
he had made of his lectures. As a result Faraday was appointed, at the age
of 21, assistant to Davy in the laboratory of the Royal Institution in London.
Faraday occupied himself mainly with chemical problems. He discovered
two new chlorides of carbon and succeeded in liquefying chlorine and other
gases. He isolated benzene in 1825.
Davy, who had the greatest influence on Faraday's thinking, had shown in
1807 that the metals sodium and potassium can be precipitated from their
compounds by an electric current, a process known as electrolysis.
Faraday's vigorous pursuit of these experiments led in 1834 to what became
known as Faraday's laws of electrolysis.
• Faraday's research of electricity and electrolysis was based
on his idea that electricity is only one of the demonstrations
of the forces of nature. Although this idea was incorrect, it
led him into the theory of electromagnetism. By 1820,
Charles Coulomb had been the first to show that electric
charges repel one another, but then in 1820 Hans Christian
Oersted and Andre Marie Ampere discovered that an
electric current produces a magnetic field. Faraday's ideas
about saving of energy led him to think that if an electric
current can cause a magnetic field, a magnetic field should
be able to produce an electric current. He showed this idea
of induction in 1831. Faraday showed the electric current in
the wire by the number of lines of force that are cut by the
wire. The principle was important in applied science.
Faraday had demonstrated electromagnetism in a series of
experiments. This experimental need probably led James
Clerk Maxwell to believe the theory of lines of force and
put Faraday's ideas into mathematical form, and so
producing modern field theory.
Faraday's discovery in 1845 found that an intense magnetic
field can rotate the plane of polarized light and is known
today as the Faraday effect.
Faraday described his several experiments in electricity and
electromagnetism in three volumes called Experimental
Researches in Electricity and his chemical work was shown
in Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics.
Some examples of Faraday’s work include switching on a
light bulb, and as easy as that you can experience Michael
Faraday’s brilliant and fascinating discovery.
And so, that is why Faraday is so important today!
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
• inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfaraday.htm
• www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/faraday_michael.
shtml
• www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0818247.html
Sources