Michael Faraday. Biography

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Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Biography of a scientist

Directory / The life of remarkable physicists

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Michael Faraday

The unit of electrical capacitance (farad) is named after him. But the merits of Michael Faraday before science are so great that it is even difficult to list them. The fate of this remarkable person is also very unusual.

Michael Faraday was born on September 22, 1791 in the small town of Newington near London. His father was a poor blacksmith and was often ill, so Michael received only a primary education and at the age of 13 started working to help his parents. Probably a "gift of fate" should be considered that the boy began to work as an auxiliary worker in a bookstore in London. It was here that he received his real education. Michael worked for eight years in a bookstore, but the moment came when the store closed and the young man was left without a job. At this time, Faraday attended lectures by the famous English scientist Humphry Davy (the founder of electrochemistry).

Michael volunteered to help the scientist, under his leadership Faraday became an excellent chemist. He was engaged in the study of steel (stainless steel - his discovery) and glass, discovered several new chemical compounds (in particular, in 1825 - benzene). Faraday in 1821 designed a device that he called the "rotator". A magnet was vertically inserted into a drop of mercury, a wire was hung vertically next to it. When a current was passed through the wire, it began to rotate around a drop with a magnet. He then made a similar device in which a magnet revolved around a wire. These were the prototypes of electric motors, which were invented more than 50 years later.

But then Faraday stopped working on this topic for 10 years, doing chemical experiments. In the early 30s, he discovered the appearance of a current in a cylindrical coil when a permanent magnet was inserted and removed from it. The significance of this discovery by Faraday can hardly be overestimated. After all, until now it was believed that electric current can only be obtained chemically (Volta's battery).

The receipt of electric current from mechanical movement later led to the emergence of power plants, which means to the introduction of electricity into human life. Continuing these experiments, Faraday built the first electric generator using a rotating disk and a steel-core coil. He created the first electrical transformer with two coils. In 1832, his article "Experimental Research on Electricity" was published.

Later he established that the electricity obtained from the movement of a magnet, from a chemical current source and static electricity are of the same nature. Working on the problems of electrochemistry, Faraday established the first and second laws of electrolysis. He proposed to represent magnetic fields using lines of force. By studying the conductivity of silver sulfide, Faraday discovered the semiconductor effect. The Faraday effect is known - the effect of a magnet on polarized light. Based on this, Faraday proposed a hypothesis about the electromagnetic nature of light.

After 50 years at the Royal Institution, Queen Victoria offered Faraday a house at the royal residence of Hampton Court and a baronetcy. He refused the title, and accepted the house.

In this house he died on August 25, 1867.

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