Science
1791 to 1867, Newington Butts, England
Electromagnetic induction, lines of force, and the laws of electrolysis - the bookbinder’s apprentice who gave the world its electric age and Maxwell his field.
Start learning Michael →Faraday’s 1831 discovery that a changing magnetic field drives an electric current - the iron ring, the moving magnet, and the spinning disc that became every generator on Earth.
Faraday’s greatest conceptual gift: the field . Against ‘action at a distance,’ he held that the space around magnets and charges is filled with real lines of force - and that the physics lives there,…
Faraday’s laws of electrolysis - chemical change is exactly proportional to the electricity passed - together with the vocabulary he coined (electrode, ion, anode, cathode) and his proof that there is only one ele…
Faraday’s art of public teaching: The Chemical History of a Candle , in which a single flame is made to open onto all of chemistry and physics - and the craft of doing real experiments, live, before an audience.
Faraday’s speculative reach: the 1845 discovery that magnetism can rotate polarized light (the Faraday effect), diamagnetism, and the astonishing guess ( Thoughts on Ray-vibrations , 1846) that light is a vibratio…
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