Michael Faraday facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Michael Faraday
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Faraday c. 1826
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| Born | 22 September 1791 Newington Butts, England
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| Died | 25 August 1867 (aged 75) Hampton Court, Middlesex, England
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| Known for | Faraday's law of induction Faraday balance Faraday cage Faraday constant Faraday cup Faraday effect Faraday's laws of electrolysis Faraday's ice pail experiment Faraday paradox Faraday paradox (electrochemistry) Faraday rotator Faraday-efficiency effect Faraday wave Faraday wheel Adsorption refrigeration Colloidal gold Homopolar motor Lines of force Magnetic separation MHD converter Premelting Regelation Rubber Balloon |
| Spouse(s) |
Sarah Barnard
(m. 1821) |
| Awards | Royal Medal (1835 and 1846) Copley Medal (1832 and 1838) Rumford Medal (1846) Albert Medal (1866) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics Chemistry |
| Institutions | Royal Institution |
| Influences | Humphry Davy William Thomas Brande |
| Influenced | James Clerk Maxwell |
| Signature | |
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Michael Faraday FRS (/ˈfærədeɪ, -di/ farr-Ə-day-,_--dee; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist best known for his contributions to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.
Faraday's work played an important role in establishing the foundations of electric motor technology.
As a chemist, Faraday discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the Bunsen burner and the system of oxidation numbers, and popularised terminology such as "anode", "cathode", "electrode" and "ion".
Contents
Early life
Michael Faraday was born on 22 September 1791 in Newington Butts, Surrey. His family was not well-off. His father, James, moved his wife, Margaret (née Hastwell), and two children to London during the winter of 1790 from Outhgill in Westmorland, where he had been an apprentice to the village blacksmith. Michael was born in the autumn of that year. The young Michael Faraday, who was the third of four children had to educate himself.
At the age of 14 he became an apprentice to George Riebau, a local bookbinder and bookseller in Blandford Street. During his seven-year apprenticeship Faraday read many books and developed an interest in science, especially in electricity.
Adult life
In 1812, at the age of 20, Faraday attended lectures by the eminent English chemist Humphry Davy. In 1813, when Davy damaged his eyesight in an accident with nitrogen trichloride, he decided to employ Faraday as an assistant. Coincidentally one of the Royal Institution's assistants was sacked and Sir Humphry Davy had been asked to find a replacement; thus he appointed Faraday as Chemical Assistant at the Royal Institution on 1 March 1813.
Later life
Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1824, Faraday twice refused to become its President. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1839 but managed to recover.
In 1848, Faraday was awarded a grace and favour house in Hampton Court in Middlesex, free of all expenses and upkeep. This was the Master Mason's House, later called Faraday House, and now No. 37 Hampton Court Road. In 1858 Faraday retired to live there.
He died on 25 August 1867, aged 75. He had some years before turned down an offer of burial in Westminster Abbey upon his death, but he has a memorial plaque there, near Isaac Newton's tomb. Faraday was interred in the dissenters' (non-Anglican) section of Highgate Cemetery.
Personal life
Faraday married Sarah Barnard (1800–1879) on 12 June 1821. They met through their families at the Sandemanian church. The couple had no children.
Scientific achievements
Chemistry
Faraday's study of chlorine helped discover two new compounds of chlorine and carbon. In 1820 Faraday reported the first synthesis of compounds made from carbon and chlorine, C2Cl6 and C2Cl4. He also conducted the first rough experiments on the diffusion of gases.
Faraday succeeded in liquefying several gases. This proved that gases are the vapours of liquids possessing a very low boiling point and gave a more solid basis to the concept of molecular aggregation. He investigated the alloys of steel and produced several new kinds of glass intended for optical purposes.
Faraday is also responsible for discovering the laws of electrolysis, and for popularizing terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion.
He invented an early form of what was to become the Bunsen burner, which is still in practical use in science laboratories around the world as a convenient source of heat. Faraday worked extensively in the field of chemistry, discovering chemical substances such as benzene (which he called bicarburet of hydrogen).
He was the first to report what later came to be called metallic nanoparticles. In 1847 he discovered that the optical properties of gold colloids differed from those of the corresponding bulk metal. This was probably the first reported observation of the effects of quantum size, and might be considered to be the birth of nanoscience.
Electricity and magnetism
Faraday is best known for his work on electricity and magnetism.
His experiments and inventions formed the foundation of modern electromagnetic technology. One of the devices he built, now known as the homopolar motor, caused a continuous circular motion that was engendered by the circular magnetic force around a wire that extended into a pool of mercury wherein was placed a magnet; the wire would then rotate around the magnet if supplied with current from a chemical battery.
Faraday continued his laboratory work, exploring electromagnetic properties of materials and developing requisite experience. In 1824, Faraday briefly set up a circuit to study whether a magnetic field could regulate the flow of a current in an adjacent wire, but he found no such relationship. This experiment followed similar work conducted with light and magnets three years earlier that yielded identical results. During the next seven years, Faraday spent much of his time perfecting his recipe for optical quality (heavy) glass, borosilicate of lead, which he used in his future studies connecting light with magnetism.
In his spare time, Faraday continued publishing his experimental work on optics and electromagnetism. In 1831, he began his great series of experiments in which he discovered electromagnetic induction.
Faraday's breakthrough came when he wrapped two insulated coils of wire around an iron ring, and found that, upon passing a current through one coil, a momentary current was induced in the other coil. This phenomenon is now known as mutual induction. The iron ring-coil apparatus is still on display at the Royal Institution. In subsequent experiments, he found that if he moved a magnet through a loop of wire an electric current flowed in that wire. The current also flowed if the loop was moved over a stationary magnet. His demonstrations established that a changing magnetic field produces an electric field; this relation was modelled mathematically by James Clerk Maxwell as Faraday's law, which subsequently became one of the four Maxwell equations, and which have in turn evolved into the generalization known today as field theory. Faraday would later use the principles he had discovered to construct the electric dynamo, the ancestor of modern power generators and the electric motor.
In 1832, he completed a series of experiments aimed at investigating the fundamental nature of electricity; Faraday used "static", batteries, and "animal electricity" to produce the phenomena of electrostatic attraction, electrolysis, magnetism, etc. He concluded that, contrary to the scientific opinion of the time, the divisions between the various "kinds" of electricity were illusory. Faraday instead proposed that only a single "electricity" exists, and the changing values of quantity and intensity (current and voltage) would produce different groups of phenomena.
Diamagnetism
In 1845, Faraday discovered that many materials exhibit a weak repulsion from a magnetic field: a phenomenon he termed diamagnetism.
Faraday also discovered that the plane of polarization of linearly polarized light can be rotated by the application of an external magnetic field aligned with the direction in which the light is moving. This is now termed the Faraday effect.
Faraday cage
Michael Faraday conducted important experiments that helped explain how static electricity works. His ice pail experiment demonstrated that the charge resides only on the exterior of a charged conductor, and exterior charge has no influence on anything enclosed within a conductor. This happens because the exterior charges redistribute, shielding the interior from the electrical forces.
This shielding effect is used in what is now known as a Faraday cage. In January 1836, Faraday had put a wooden frame, 12ft square, on four glass supports and added paper walls and wire mesh. He then stepped inside and electrified it. When he stepped out of his electrified cage, Faraday had shown that electricity was a force, not an imponderable fluid as was believed at the time.
Royal Institution and public service
Faraday had a long association with the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the House of the Royal Institution in 1821. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1824. In 1825, he became Director of the Laboratory of the Royal Institution. Six years later, in 1833, Faraday became the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a position to which he was appointed for life without the obligation to deliver lectures. His sponsor and mentor was John 'Mad Jack' Fuller, who created the position at the Royal Institution for Faraday.
Beyond his scientific research, Faraday undertook numerous, and often time-consuming, service projects for private enterprise and the British government. This work included investigations of explosions in coal mines, the construction and operation of lighthouses and work on protecting the bottoms of ships from corrosion. His workshop still stands at Trinity Buoy Wharf above the Chain and Buoy Store, next to London's only lighthouse where he carried out the first experiments in electric lighting for lighthouses.
Between 1827 and 1860 at the Royal Institution in London, Faraday gave a series of nineteen Christmas lectures for young people, a series which continues today. The objective of the lectures was to present science to the general public in the hopes of inspiring them and generating revenue for the Royal Institution.
Recognition
- An honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from the University of Oxford (1832).
- A Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1832).
- A foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1838).
- A member of the American Philosophical Society (1840).
- One of eight foreign members elected to the French Academy of Sciences (1844).
- An associated member to the Royal Institute of the Netherlands (1849).
Commemorations
A statue of Faraday stands in Savoy Place, London, outside the Institution of Engineering and Technology. The Michael Faraday Memorial, designed by brutalist architect Rodney Gordon and completed in 1961, is at the Elephant & Castle gyratory system, near Faraday's birthplace at Newington Butts, London. Faraday School is located on Trinity Buoy Wharf where his workshop still stands above the Chain and Buoy Store, next to London's only lighthouse. Faraday Gardens is a small park in Walworth, London, not far from his birthplace at Newington Butts. It lies within the local council ward of Faraday in the London Borough of Southwark. Michael Faraday Primary school is situated on the Aylesbury Estate in Walworth.
A building at London South Bank University, which houses the institute's electrical engineering departments is named the Faraday Wing, due to its proximity to Faraday's birthplace in Newington Butts. A hall at Loughborough University was named after Faraday in 1960. Near the entrance to its dining hall is a bronze casting, which depicts the symbol of an electrical transformer, and inside there hangs a portrait, both in Faraday's honour. An eight-story building at the University of Edinburgh's science & engineering campus is named for Faraday, as is a recently built hall of accommodation at Brunel University, the main engineering building at Swansea University, and the instructional and experimental physics building at Northern Illinois University. The former UK Faraday Station in Antarctica was named after him.
Streets named for Faraday can be found in many British cities (e.g., London, Fife, Swindon, Basingstoke, Nottingham, Whitby, Kirkby, Crawley, Newbury, Swansea, Aylesbury and Stevenage) as well as in France (Paris), Germany (Berlin-Dahlem, Hermsdorf), Canada (Quebec City, Quebec; Deep River, Ontario; Ottawa, Ontario), the United States (Reston, Virginia), and New Zealand (Hawke's Bay).
A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque, unveiled in 1876, commemorates Faraday at 48 Blandford Street in London's Marylebone district. From 1991 until 2001, Faraday's picture featured on the reverse of Series E £20 banknotes issued by the Bank of England. He was portrayed conducting a lecture at the Royal Institution with the magneto-electric spark apparatus.
Faraday has been commemorated on postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail. In 1991, as a pioneer of electricity he featured in their Scientific Achievements issue along with pioneers in three other fields (Charles Babbage (computing), Frank Whittle (jet engine) and Robert Watson-Watt (radar)). In 1999, under the title "Faraday's Electricity", he featured in their World Changers issue along with Charles Darwin, Edward Jenner and Alan Turing.
The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion derives its name from the scientist, who saw his faith as integral to his scientific research. The logo of the institute is also based on Faraday's discoveries. It was created in 2006 by a $2,000,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation to carry out academic research, to foster understanding of the interaction between science and religion, and to engage public understanding in both these subject areas.
The Faraday Institution, an independent energy storage research institute established in 2017, also derives its name from Michael Faraday. The organisation serves as the UK's primary research programme to advance battery science and technology, education, public engagement and market research.
Faraday's life and contributions to electromagnetics was the principal topic of the tenth episode, titled "The Electric Boy", of the 2014 American science documentary series, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which was broadcast on Fox and the National Geographic Channel.
Interesting facts about Michael Faraday
- The SI unit of capacitance is named in his honour: the farad.
- As a teenager, Faraday was particularly inspired by the book Conversations on Chemistry by Jane Marcet.
- When Faraday was offered a knighthood in recognition for his services to science, he turned it down, believing that it was against the word of the Bible to accumulate riches and pursue worldly reward.
- He became the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1833.
- When asked by the government to advise on the production of chemical weapons for use in the Crimean War (1853–1856), Faraday refused to participate, citing ethical reasons.
- Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall.
- In 2002, Faraday was ranked number 22 in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote.
Michael Faraday quotes
- "A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong."
- "Nothing is ever too good to be true."
- "The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly."
- "Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties."
- "The book of nature which we have to read is written by the finger of God."
Awards named in Faraday's honour
In honor and remembrance of his great scientific contributions, several institutions have created prizes and awards in his name. This include:
- The IET Faraday Medal
- The Royal Society of London Michael Faraday Prize
- The Institute of Physics Michael Faraday Medal and Prize
- The Royal Society of Chemistry Faraday Lectureship Prize
Gallery
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Michael Faraday in his laboratory, c. 1850s.
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Michael Faraday's study at the Royal Institution.
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Michael Faraday's flat at the Royal Institution.
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Artist Harriet Jane Moore who documented Faraday's life in watercolours.
See also
In Spanish: Michael Faraday para niños
- Faraday (Unit of electrical charge)
- Forensic engineering
- Nikola Tesla
- Tetrachloroethylene
- Timeline of hydrogen technologies
- Timeline of low-temperature technology
- Zeeman effect
