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These are Michael Faraday's own reports of the experiments that made the electric age possible, as he presented them to the Royal Society between 1831 and…
These are Michael Faraday's own reports of the experiments that made the electric age possible, as he presented them to the Royal Society between 1831 and 1838. This first volume begins with his discovery of electromagnetic induction, that a moving magnet produces a current in a wire, the principle behind every generator and transformer. It goes on to show that electricity from batteries, friction, magnets and even electric fish is one and the same, sets out the laws of electrolysis, and explores how electric forces act through insulating materials.
Context and significance
Faraday was the son of a blacksmith and left school early to work for a bookbinder, yet he became one of the greatest experimental scientists who ever lived, and words such as electrode, anode, cathode and ion were coined in these papers. He wrote without mathematics, describing exactly what he did and saw. For his gift for explaining science to young people, read The Chemical History of a Candle.
About the author
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) was the son of a London blacksmith and left school early to become a bookbinder's apprentice, educating himself by reading the books he bound. After attending lectures by the chemist Humphry Davy, he sent Davy his notes and was taken on as his assistant at the Royal Institution.
He discovered electromagnetic induction, the principle of the electric generator, and laid the foundations of electrochemistry, as recorded in his Experimental Researches in Electricity. He started the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures for young people, among them The Chemical History of a Candle, and refused a knighthood.