Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday was born in a small village near London. His father, a poor blacksmith, could feed and clothe his family with difficulty but was entirely unable to afford the luxury of an education for his boy. Michael had to work, and he had to learn a trade. When a boy of 13, he became an errand-boy and later on a bookbinder's apprentice.

Some of the scientific books passing through his hands aroused the boy's interest in science.

Notwithstanding his scant wages, he used to buy inexpensive materials to make an apparatus necessary for performing experiments.

Finding the apprentice studying electricity, a visitor to the bookbinder's shop gave him tickets to attend four lectures by Humphry Davy. While at the lectures, Faraday listened, understood everything and put down every word. Then, at home, in his room, he wrote Davy a letter, telling him of his great interest in science and his desire to do scientific work. The notes of the lectures were enclosed as proof of his earnestness.

They say that Davy was a scientist well known for his researches and discoveries but his greatest discovery was Michael Faraday.

In March, 1813, Davy secured for him the position of laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution. In October of that very year Davy took Faraday with him on a lengthy continental tour in the capacity of a secretary, assistant in experiments, and valet.

When back in London again Faraday resumed his post the Royal Institution laboratory, assisted Davy in his research, started to write articles for a scientific magazine and to carry on experimental work.

In 1824, at the age of thirty-two, or so, Michael Faraday was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1825 he became director of the laboratory. The salary was one hundred pounds a year.

Although offered more than ten times the amount of his salary for external services as consultant, Faraday gave them up as such work took too much of his time. He made the great decision —to give all his attention to scientific research, to pursue science, not wealth. And he died a poor man.

In his lifetime, Faraday performed more than two thousand laborious experiments and made countless valuable discoveries in chemistry and physics. What we are most interested in here is just one discovery of his, namely, the generation of electricity from magnetism.

On the very day on which the report of Oersted's discovery was published in England, Faraday repeated the latter's experiments and confirmed his results. Even at that early date, the fact that electricity could produce magnetic effects turned his thoughts towards the reverse possibility — that of generating electricity owing to magnetic effects.

However, in the ten years or so that followed he found little time for work in the field of electricity, all his attention being turned to the chemical and metallurgical investigations. It is characteristic of him that when he gave up the varied scientific interests that had taken all his time and concentrated on the problem of electromagnetic induction, he solved it within ten working days. Faraday wound a copper wire into a coil, and to this wire he connected a galvanometer in order to detect any current which might be generated. He observed the galvanometer needle move both while plunging a bar magnet into the hollow coil and while lifting it out. Evidently, electricity had been produced in the coil. But why had his previous experiments failed? It was because his magnets, wires, and coils had been stationary. It was only when the magnet was moving that an electric current was generated.

As known all over the world, on October 17, 1831, Faraday made his historic discovery, namely, induction of a current in a conductor resulted when the conductor was made to cut the lines of magnetic force.