66 Facts About Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Michael Faraday established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.

Michael Faraday similarly discovered the principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis.

Michael Faraday ultimately became the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution, a lifetime position.

Michael Faraday was an excellent experimentalist who conveyed his ideas in clear and simple language; his mathematical abilities did not extend as far as trigonometry and were limited to the simplest algebra.

Michael Faraday's father, James, was a member of the Glasite sect of Christianity.

James Michael Faraday moved his wife, Margaret, and two children to London during the winter of 1790 from Outhgill in Westmorland, where he had been an apprentice to the village blacksmith.

The young Michael Faraday, who was the third of four children, having only the most basic school education, had to educate himself.

Michael Faraday developed an interest in science, especially in electricity.

Michael Faraday was particularly inspired by the book Conversations on Chemistry by Jane Marcet.

In 1812, at the age of 20 and at the end of his apprenticeship, Michael Faraday attended lectures by the eminent English chemist Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution and the Royal Society, and John Tatum, founder of the City Philosophical Society.

Michael Faraday subsequently sent Davy a 300-page book based on notes that he had taken during these lectures.

Michael Faraday was a devout Christian; his Sandemanian denomination was an offshoot of the Church of Scotland.

Michael Faraday's church was located at Paul's Alley in the Barbican.

Michael Faraday became the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1833.

In 1832, Michael Faraday was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Michael Faraday was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1838.

Michael Faraday was one of eight foreign members elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1844.

Michael Faraday suffered a nervous breakdown in 1839 but eventually returned to his investigations into electromagnetism.

In 1848, as a result of representations by the Prince Consort, Michael Faraday was awarded a grace and favour house in Hampton Court in Middlesex, free of all expenses and upkeep.

Michael Faraday died at his house at Hampton Court on 25 August 1867, aged 75.

Michael Faraday had some years before turned down an offer of burial in Westminster Abbey upon his death, but he has a memorial plaque there, near Isaac Newton's tomb.

Michael Faraday was interred in the dissenters' section of Highgate Cemetery.

Michael Faraday was involved in the study of chlorine; he discovered two new compounds of chlorine and carbon.

Michael Faraday conducted the first rough experiments on the diffusion of gases, a phenomenon that was first pointed out by John Dalton.

Michael Faraday succeeded in liquefying several gases, investigated the alloys of steel, and produced several new kinds of glass intended for optical purposes.

Michael Faraday invented an early form of what was to become the Bunsen burner, which is still in practical use in science laboratories around the world as a convenient source of heat.

Michael Faraday worked extensively in the field of chemistry, discovering chemical substances such as benzene and liquefying gases such as chlorine.

In 1820 Michael Faraday reported the first synthesis of compounds made from carbon and chlorine, C2Cl6 and C2Cl4, and published his results the following year.

Michael Faraday determined the composition of the chlorine clathrate hydrate, which had been discovered by Humphry Davy in 1810.

Michael Faraday is responsible for discovering the laws of electrolysis, and for popularizing terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion, terms proposed in large part by William Whewell.

Michael Faraday was the first to report what later came to be called metallic nanoparticles.

Michael Faraday is best known for his work on electricity and magnetism.

Michael Faraday's first recorded experiment was the construction of a voltaic pile with seven British halfpenny coins, stacked together with seven discs of sheet zinc, and six pieces of paper moistened with salt water.

Michael Faraday, having discussed the problem with the two men, went on to build two devices to produce what he called "electromagnetic rotation".

From his initial discovery in 1821, Michael Faraday continued his laboratory work, exploring electromagnetic properties of materials and developing requisite experience.

In 1824, Michael Faraday briefly set up a circuit to study whether a magnetic field could regulate the flow of a current in an adjacent wire, but he found no such relationship.

Michael Faraday's breakthrough came when he wrapped two insulated coils of wire around an iron ring, and found that, upon passing a current through one coil, a momentary current was induced in the other coil.

Michael Faraday's demonstrations established that a changing magnetic field produces an electric field; this relation was modelled mathematically by James Clerk Maxwell as Faraday's law, which subsequently became one of the four Maxwell equations, and which have in turn evolved into the generalization known today as field theory.

In 1832, he completed a series of experiments aimed at investigating the fundamental nature of electricity; Michael Faraday used "static", batteries, and "animal electricity" to produce the phenomena of electrostatic attraction, electrolysis, magnetism, etc.

Michael Faraday concluded that, contrary to the scientific opinion of the time, the divisions between the various "kinds" of electricity were illusory.

Michael Faraday instead proposed that only a single "electricity" exists, and the changing values of quantity and intensity would produce different groups of phenomena.

In 1845, Michael Faraday discovered that many materials exhibit a weak repulsion from a magnetic field: a phenomenon he termed diamagnetism.

Michael Faraday discovered that the plane of polarization of linearly polarized light can be rotated by the application of an external magnetic field aligned with the direction in which the light is moving.

Later on in his life, in 1862, Michael Faraday used a spectroscope to search for a different alteration of light, the change of spectral lines by an applied magnetic field.

In January 1836, Michael Faraday had put a wooden frame, 12ft square, on four glass supports and added paper walls and wire mesh.

When he stepped out of his electrified cage, Michael Faraday had shown that electricity was a force, not an imponderable fluid as was believed at the time.

Michael Faraday had a long association with the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Michael Faraday was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the House of the Royal Institution in 1821.

Michael Faraday was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1824.

Six years later, in 1833, Michael Faraday became the first Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a position to which he was appointed for life without the obligation to deliver lectures.

Beyond his scientific research into areas such as chemistry, electricity, and magnetism at the Royal Institution, Michael Faraday undertook numerous, and often time-consuming, service projects for private enterprise and the British government.

The first-time explosions had been linked to dust, Michael Faraday gave a demonstration during a lecture on how ventilation could prevent it.

Michael Faraday was active in what would now be called environmental science, or engineering.

Michael Faraday investigated industrial pollution at Swansea and was consulted on air pollution at the Royal Mint.

In July 1855, Michael Faraday wrote a letter to The Times on the subject of the foul condition of the River Thames, which resulted in an often-reprinted cartoon in Punch.

Michael Faraday assisted with the planning and judging of exhibits for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.

Michael Faraday advised the National Gallery on the cleaning and protection of its art collection, and served on the National Gallery Site Commission in 1857.

Michael Faraday weighed in negatively on the public's fascination with table-turning, mesmerism, and seances, and in so doing chastised both the public and the nation's educational system.

Between 1827 and 1860 at the Royal Institution in London, Michael Faraday gave a series of nineteen Christmas lectures for young people, a series which continues today.

Michael Faraday's lectures were joyful and juvenile, he delighted in filling soap bubbles with various gasses, but the lectures were deeply philosophical.

Michael Faraday School is located on Trinity Buoy Wharf where his workshop still stands above the Chain and Buoy Store, next to London's only lighthouse.

Michael Faraday Gardens is a small park in Walworth, London, not far from his birthplace at Newington Butts.

Michael Faraday was portrayed conducting a lecture at the Royal Institution with the magneto-electric spark apparatus.

In 2002, Michael Faraday was ranked number 22 in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote.

Michael Faraday has been commemorated on postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.