|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Michael Faraday: Founder of Field Theory
| Article
# : |
19724 |
|
|
Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
|
| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1991 |
3,342 Words |
| Author
: |
David Gooding
David Gooding is senior lecturer in the Science Studies
Centre
at Bath University in England. He is author of Experiment and
the Making of Meaning, coeditor of Faraday Rediscovered and
of
The Uses of Experiment, and coauthor of Faraday. |
Faraday was born in the year that Mozart died (1791). For most people, Faraday's achievement is a lot less accessible than Mozart's: his music is appreciated around the world, even by those who can neither read it nor play it. Faraday's contributions to modern life and culture are just as great though far less obvious. His discoveries of electromagnetic rotation and magnetic induction laid the foundations for modern electrical technology--including generators, transformers, and electric motors--and made a framework for unified field theories of electricity, magnetism, and light. His search for a unified theory turned traditional views of matter and force upside down: Faraday argued that the familiar properties of bodies reside not in matter but in forces filling all space.
Faraday's background and religious beliefs make him an unusual and unlikely companion for the greatest of Western scientists. He was born on September 22, 1791, in Newington Butts, then on the outskirts of London, England. Michael's childhood hardly foreshadowed a life of science: he had very little schooling. His father, a blacksmith, died in October 1805, the same month that Michael was apprenticed to George Riebau, a bookbinder.
The apprenticeship offered security and, far more important, as it turned out, gave him access to works such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Jane Marcet's introductory Conversations on Chemistry. These excited his interest in science. At this time no technical or scientific instruction was available for the likes of Faraday. Institutions founded to disseminate science, such as the Royal Institution (RI) offered weekly lectures, as did self-help societies, such as the City Philosophical Society (CPS). This group of self-improving young men met regularly between 1808 and 1819. In 1810 Faraday paid a shilling for each lecture given at the CPS by the silversmith Jack Tatum and attended other lectures at the RI by Sir Humphry Davy. Like these two men, Faraday also was largely self-taught.
At this time few people could earn a living from the pursuit of knowledge. How could an apprentice bookbinder enter the world of science? In the spring of 1812 Faraday attended lectures by Davy at the RI. Later he presented Davy with a beautifully bound volume of his notes, which is still preserved at the RI. In October of the same year, Faraday's apprenticeship came to an end and, though he wanted to become a natural philosopher, it seemed that he would have to continue as a journeyman printer. However, as fate would have it, early in 1813, Davy dismissed his laboratory assistant. He remembered Faraday and offered him the position. Faraday
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
