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Michael Faraday was one of the great scientists in history. Some historians of science refer to him as the greatest experimentalist in the history of science. It was largely due to his efforts that electricity became a vital energy source.
Michael Faraday was born in Newington, near present-day Elephant and Castle, London. His family was poor and he had to educate himself. At fourteen he became apprenticed to a book-binder and seller and during his seven year apprenticeship read many books, developing an interest in science.
At the age of twenty he attended lectures by the eminent scientist Humphry DavySir Humphry Davy ( December 17, 1778 May 29, 1829), often incorrectly spelled Humphrey was an English chemist. He was born in Penzance, Cornwall, England. Davy became well known owing to his experiences with the physiological action of some gases, includi, president of the Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence and was founded in 1660. The Royal Irish Academy, founded in 1782, is also closely affiliated with it. The Royal Society of Edinburgh (founded 1783) is a separate S, and was interested. After he sent him a sample of notes that he had made, Davy employed Faraday as his assistant. In a class-ridden society, he was not considered to be a gentleman, and it is said that Davy's wife refused to treat him as an equal and would not associate with him socially. However, it was not long before Faraday surpassed Davy.
His greatest work was with electricity. In 1821Events February 23 The Philadelphia College of Apothecaries founds the first pharmacy college. March 25 Greece declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence. July 10 The United States takes possession of its ne, soon after the Danish chemist, Ørsted, discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetism, Davy and William Hyde WollastonFor the English philosophical writer, see William Wollaston. William Hyde Wollaston ( August 6, 1766 December 22, 1828) was an English chemist who is famous for discovering two chemical elements and for developing a way to process platinum ore. He was bor tried but failed to design an electric motorAn electric motor converts electricity into mechanical motion. The reverse task, that of converting mechanical motion into electricity, is accomplished by a generator. The two devices are identical except for their application and minor construction detai. Faraday, having discussed the problem with the two men, went on to build two devices to produce what he called electromagnetic rotation: a continuous circular motion from the circular magnetic force around a wire. A wire extending into a pool of mercuryMercury also called quicksilver is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Hg ( L. hydrargyrum and atomic number 80. A heavy, silvery, transition metal, mercury is one of only two elements that are liquid at room temperature (the othe with a magnet placed inside would rotate around the magnet if charged with electricity by a chemical battery. These experiments and inventions form the foundation of modern electromagnetic technology. Unwisely, Faraday published his results without acknowledging his debt to Wollaston and Davy, and the resulting controversy caused Faraday to withdraw from electromagnetic research for several years.
Ten years later, in 1831Events February- March Revolts in Modena, Parma and the Papal States are put down by Austrian troops February 20 Battle of Grochow. Polish rebel forces divide a Russian army. March 1 Democrat Samuel Smith becomes President Pro Tempore of the United States, he began his great series of experiments in which he discovered electromagnetic induction. He found that if he moved a magnet through a loop of wire, an electric current passed through the wire. His demonstrations exposed the concept that electric current produced magnetism. Faraday then used the principle to construct the electric dynamo, the ancestor of modern power generators.
Faraday proposed that electromagnetic forces extended into the empty space around the conductor, but did not complete his work over this proposal. Faraday's experimental visualization, of lines of flux emanating from charged bodies, was mathematically modelled by Faraday's law (later incorporated into Maxwell's equations) which has evolved into the generalization known as field theory.
Faraday also dabbled in chemistry, discovering chemical substances such as benzene, inventing the system of oxidation numbers, and liquefying gases. He also discovered the laws of electrolysis and popularized terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion.
In 1845 he discovered what is now called the Faraday effect and the phenomenon that he named diamagnetism. The plane of polarization of linearly polarized light propagated through a material medium can be rotated by the application of an external magnetic field aligned in the propagation direction. He wrote in his notebook, "I have at last succeeded in illuminating a magnetic curve or line of force and in magnetising a ray of light". This established that magnetic force and light were related.
In the work on static electricity, Faraday demonstrated that the charge only resided on the exterior of a charged conductor, and exterior charge had no influence on anything enclosed within a conductor; this shielding effect is used in what is now known as a Faraday cage.