Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (Newington Butts, Surrey, 22 September 1791 – Hampton Court, Surrey, 25 August 1867) was the son of a blacksmith who became one of the most famous scientists of the 19th century.

He was sent to a local school to learn how to read and write. A local vicar paid for this, seeing his obvious intelligence. Faraday became the greatest experimental physicist of the nineteenth century.^[1][2]

Faraday became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was awarded the Royal, Copley and Rumford medals of the Society. Although Faraday had only primary school education, and did not know higher mathematics, he became one of the most influential scientists in history. For the most part, he was an autodidact: he taught himself.

At the time when he lived, people like him were called natural philosophers. Then, only a little was known about electricity. Michael Faraday discovered many things about the way electricity flowing in a wire can act like a magnet (now called electromagnetism). He also found out a lot about the way electricity can be used with chemicals to make them change (now called electrochemistry).

He showed that magnetism is able to affect rays of light, as there is an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.^[3] His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology. He made the first electric motor. It is thanks to his early work that electricity has been made into a useful thing today.

As a chemist, Michael Faraday discovered benzene, invented an early type of Bunsen burner and popularized terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode and ion. Faraday was the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a position to which he was appointed for life. He was also the Director of the Royal Institution after Sir Humphrey Davy.

Albert Einstein kept a photograph of Faraday on his study wall alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.^[4]

1. ↑ Russell, Colin (2000). Michael Faraday: physics and faith. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-511763-9.
2. ↑ "best experimentalist in the history of science" Peter Ford, University of Bath Department of Physics. Retrieved January 2007.
3. ↑ [1] Archives Biographies: Michael Faraday, The Institution of Engineering and Technology.
4. ↑ "Einstein's heroes: imagining the world through the language of mathematics", by Robyn Arianrhod UQP, reviewed by Jane Gleeson-White, 10 November 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald.