From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Faraday, FRS (22
September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist
and physicist (or natural
philosopher, in the terminology of the time) who contributed to the
fields of electromagnetism and
electrochemistry.
Faraday studied the magneticfield around
a conductor carrying
a DC electric
current, and established the basis for the electromagnetic field concept
in physics. He discovered
electromagnetic induction,diamagnetism,
and laws
of electrolysis. He established that
magnetism could affect rays oflight and
that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.[1][2] His
inventions of electromagnetic
rotary devices formed the
foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts
that electricity
became viable for use in technology.
As a chemist, Michael Faraday discovered benzene,
investigated the clathrate
hydrate of chlorine, invented
an early form of the
Bunsen burner and the system of oxidation
numbers, and popularized terminology such as
anode, cathode, electrode,
and
ion.
Although Faraday received little formal education and knew little of higher
mathematics, such as calculus, he was one of the most influential scientists in
history. Some historians[3] of
science refer to him as the best experimentalist in
the history of science.[4] The SI unit
of
capacitance, the farad,
is named after him, as is the Faraday
constant, the charge on a mole of electrons (about
96,485 coulombs). Faraday's
law of induction states that a
magnetic field changing in time creates a proportional electromotive
force.
Faraday was the first and foremost Fullerian
Professor of Chemistry at the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, a position to which he was appointed for
life.
Albert Einstein kept a
photograph of Faraday on his study wall alongside pictures of
Isaac Newton and James
Clerk Maxwell.[5]
Faraday was highly religious; he was a member of the Sandemanian
Church, a
Christian sect founded in 1730
which demanded total faith and commitment. Biographers have noted that "a
strong sense of the unity of God and nature pervaded
