Michael Faraday

“ This is but one of the merits of Michael Faraday, whom many have thought the very greatest of scientific experimenters, and who was certainly one of the noblest and most inspired of men. The work of Faraday is of a richness and variety that baffles description. He was interested in every department of physical science, and he was a great discoverer wherever his interests rested. ”

“ No man ever worked with a more single hearted devotion to pure science--with a more absolute disregard of money or fame, as compared with knowledge--than Michael Faraday. Yet future ages will perhaps judge that no stronger impulse was ever given to the progress of industrial art, or to the advancement of the material interests of mankind, than the impulse which sprang from his discoveries in electricity and magnetism. ”

“ For nearly thirty years, with credit to himself and to the Brethren of the Trinity House, did Michael Faraday continue as their scientific adviser. Frequently do we find him [94] experimenting on lights and lighting—visiting the various lighthouses round the coast, trying the electric light for them, comparing the various lights, and reporting to the Brethren—such work as this is, as has been said, to be frequently noted in looking over a record of the mass of work which during these years Faraday was doing. ”

“ Street, where it will be remembered Michael Faraday began the battle of life as a newsboy. Mr. Riebau's shop (No. 2) is yet standing, and is still a stationer's and bookseller's. Over the shop front is now to be observed a plaque, on which are the simple words, "Michael Faraday, Man of Science, apprentice here, 1791-1867." Professor Tyndall tells us of a pleasing story of a visit which he paid with the ex-bookbinder to this scene of his early labours. "Mr. Faraday and myself quitted the Institution one evening together, to pay a visit in Baker Street. ”

“ The theory of definite electrolytical or electro-chemical action appears to me to touch immediately upon the absolute quantity of electricity or electric power belonging to different bodies. It is impossible, perhaps, to speak on this point without committing oneself beyond what present facts will sustain; and yet it is equally impossible, and perhaps would be impolitic, not to reason upon the subject. Although we know nothing of what an atom is, yet we cannot resist forming some idea of a small particle, which represents it to the mind ”

“ It rivals in brilliancy, if it does not even very much surpass, the light from the discharge of voltaic electricity; but it endures for an instant only, and is attended by a sharp noise like that of a small explosion. Still no difficulty can arise in recognising it to be the same spark as that from the voltaic battery, especially under certain circumstances. The eye cannot distinguish the difference between a voltaic and a common electricity spark, if they be taken between amalgamated surfaces of metal, at intervals only, and through the same distance of air. ”

“ When all three, Germans and French and English, are agreed as to the value of a scientific discovery, then it may be looked upon as having some of the absoluteness, or at least possesses for the moment the finality of scientific truth. If this triple agreement be taken as the criterion of the significance of a great scientist's work, then must Michael Faraday be considered as without doubt one of the greatest scientists of our time, and probably the greatest experimental scientist that the world has known. ”

“ One fact, however, should ever be kept in mind: Whatever may be the extent of the superstructure of electrical science, it is all built upon the foundation of electro-magnetic induction laid by Michael Faraday. The little "magnetic spark" he first produced, and the trembling of his galvanometer-needle, were but signals of the birth of the giant of the century.
These are the days of electricity and steel, and a fitting part of the intense age in which they exist. That we have as yet seen but a partial development of the possibilities of the electrical discovery, no one can doubt. ”

“ Thus you have seen the force of electricity acting in other ways than in attracting; you have also seen it combine matters together or disunite them by means of its action on the chemical force; and in this case, therefore, you have an instance in which these two powers are related. But we have other and deeper relations than these; we have not merely to see how it is that one power affects another—how the force of heat affects chemical affinity, and so forth, but we must try and comprehend what relation they bear to each other, and how these powers may be changed one into the other ”

“ The power, instead of being like that of gravity, which causes particles to act on each other through straight lines, whatever other particles may be between them, is more analogous to that of a series of magnetic needles, or to the condition of the particles considered as forming the whole of a straight or a curved magnet. So that in whatever way I view it, and with great suspicion of the influence of favourite notions over myself, I cannot perceive how the ordinary theory applied to explain induction can be a correct representation of that great natural principle of electrical action. ”

“ He will be pointed to as the man who in the middle of the nineteenth century, waged an energetic and relentless warfare against the two fluid theories in electricity and magnetism, and who dealt its death-blow to the theory of action at a distance. And to show the powerful influence his master-mind exercised over contemporary science, the historian may merely refer to Clerk-Maxwell, Sir William Thomson, Rayleigh, Tyndall, and others, all admiring disciples and professed followers of the great Michael Faraday. ”

“ As a source of success there stands out also his enthusiasm. A new fact seemed to charge him with an energy that gleamed from his eyes and quivered through his limbs, and, as by induction, charged for the time those in his presence with the same vigour of interest. Plücker, of Bonn, was showing him one day in the laboratory at Albemarle Street his experiments on the action of a magnet on the electric discharge in vacuum tubes. Faraday danced round them; and as he saw the moving arches of light, he cried, "Oh! to live in it!" ”

“ While once conversing with Faraday on science, in its relations to commerce and litigation, he said to me that at a certain period of his career he was forced definitely to ask himself, and finally to decide, whether he should make wealth or science the pursuit of his life. He could not serve both masters, and he was therefore compelled to choose between them. After the discovery of magneto-electricity his fame was so noised abroad that the commercial world would hardly have considered any remuneration too high for the aid of abilities like his. ”

“ The value of his contributions to our fund of scientific knowledge is made manifest by the fact that whatever book on electricity and allied subjects we may take up now—works even bringing the science down to the very latest date—we always find the name and experiments of Michael Faraday quoted with great respect as a leader and an unquestioned authority. ”

“ Amongst the actions of different kinds into which electricity has conventionally been subdivided, there is, I think, none which excels, or even equals in importance, that called Induction. It is of the most general influence in electrical phenomena, appearing to be concerned in every one of them, and has in reality the character of a first, essential, and fundamental principle. Its comprehension is so important, that I think we cannot proceed much further in the investigation of the laws of electricity without a more thorough understanding of its nature ”

“ Each of these qualities—his respect for and love to others, or, more generally, his reverence and kindliness—deserves careful examination.
Throughout his life, Michael Faraday appeared as though standing in a reverential attitude towards Nature, Man, and God.
Towards Nature, for he regarded the universe as a vast congeries of facts which would not bend to human theories. Speaking of his own early life, he says: "I was a very lively imaginative person, and could believe in the 'Arabian Nights' as easily as in the 'Encyclopædia;' but facts were important to me, and saved me. ”

“ As far as experiment has proceeded, it appears, therefore, impossible either to evolve or make disappear one electric force without equal and corresponding change in the other. It is also equally impossible experimentally to charge a portion of matter with one electric force independently of the other. Charge always implies induction, for it can in no instance be effected without; and also the presence of the two forms of power, equally at the moment of the development and afterwards. There is no absolute charge of matter with one fluid; no latency of a single electricity. ”

“ If a second wire move in the same direction as the first, the same power is exerted upon it, and it is therefore unable to alter the condition of the first: for there appear to be no natural differences among substances when connected in a series, by which, when moving under the same circumstances relative to the magnet, one tends to produce a more powerful electric current in the whole circuit than another (201. 214.) ”

“ The world of science lost on Sunday one of its most assiduous and enthusiastic members. The life of Michael Faraday had been spent from early manhood in the single pursuit of scientific discovery, and through his years extended to 73, he preserved to the end the freshness and vivacity of youth in the exposition of his favourite subjects, coupled with a measure of simplicity which youth never attains. ”

“ No other known power has like direction with that exerted between an electric current and a magnetic pole; it is tangential, while all other forces, acting at a distance, are direct. Hence, if a magnetic pole on one side of a revolving plate follow its course by reason of its obedience to the tangential force exerted upon it by the very current of electricity which it has itself caused, a similar pole on the opposite side of the plate should immediately set it free from this force; for the currents which tend to be formed by the action of the two poles are in opposite directions ”

“ What can show you better than such an experiment as this the magnetic attraction with which we have endowed these portions of iron? Here, again, is a fine illustration of this strong power of magnetism. It is a magnet of the same sort as the one you have just seen. I am about to make the current of electricity pass through the wires which are round this iron for the purpose of showing you what powerful effects we get. Here are the poles of the magnet; and let us place an one of them this long bar of iron. You see, as soon as contact is made, how it rises in position ”

“ The feeble current which tends to be produced in the worse conductor, has its transmission favoured in the better conductor, and the stronger current which tends to form in the latter has its intensity diminished by the obstruction of the former; and the forces of generation and obstruction are so perfectly neutralize each other exactly. Now as the obstruction is inversely as the balanced as to conducting power, the tendency to generate a current must be directly as that power to produce this perfect equilibrium. ”

“ Faraday was pre-eminently a discoverer; he liked the name of "philosopher." His favourite paths of study seem to wander far enough from the common abodes of human thought or the requirements of ordinary life. He became familiar, as no other man ever was, with the varied forces of magnetism and electricity, heat and light, gravitation and galvanism, chemical affinity and mechanical motion ”

“ Simplicity, in its best and highest meaning, was, if we can in one word sum up the character of a man, the chief feature of Faraday in all his relations throughout life. Through all his letters to his intimate friends, too, there runs a vein of unaffected pleasantry which shows us at once that he was no "mere scientist," no "dry-as-dust" philosopher, which is a character too often given by thoughtless and careless persons to men who earn their laurels in any special field of research. ”

“ The belief in the disinterested Zeal and lofty purity of life of the students of philosophy, which was one motive for Faraday's whole life. No man was ever more entirely unselfish, or more entirely beloved. Modest, truthful, candid, he had the true spirit of a philosopher and of a Christian, for it may be said of him, in the words of the father of English poetry,—
"Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach."
The cause of science would meet with fewer enemies, its discoveries would command a more ready assent, were all its votaries imbued with the humility of Michael Faraday. ”

“ If a unipolar body could exist, i.e. one that could conduct the one electricity and not the other, what very new characters we should have a right to expect in the currents of single electricities passing through them, and how greatly ought they to differ, not only from the common current which is supposed to have both electricities travelling in opposite directions in equal amount at the same time, but also from each other! ”