biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1791–1867)
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| biography:
| Chemist, physicist, and natural philosopher, usually regarded as the greatest of all experimental physicists, born in Newington Butts, Surrey, SE England, UK. Apprenticed to a bookbinder, he devoted his leisure to reading scientific books and joined a weekly club to learn elementary science. In 1813 he was engaged by Davy as his assistant at the Royal Institution, soon became his co-worker, and in 1827 succeeded to Davy's chair of chemistry, a post he held until retirement. His research contributed to an extremely broad area of physical science: he discovered benzene and the laws of electrolysis, invented an electric motor, dynamo and transformer, and was the creator of classical field theory. His major work is the series of Experimental Researches on Electricity (1839–55), in which he reports a wide range of discoveries about the nature of electricity. In 1845 he worked on his idea that the forces of electricity, magnetism, light and gravity are connected and was able to show that polarized light is affected by a magnetic field. He failed to get a similar result with an electric field, an effect later discovered (1875) by John Kerr. In 1846 Faraday delivered a lecture that included ‘Thoughts on Ray Vibrations’ which Maxwell acknowledged as the basis of the electromagnetic theory of light that he presented in 1873. Faraday's popular Christmas lectures for young people, begun in 1826, continue today and are now televised. |
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