Tuesday 21 September 2021

22 September: Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday was born on this date in 1791. The English scientist has been called the "father of electricity." 10 things you might not know about him:

He didn't go to university. In fact, he only had the most basic education as he was born into a poor family in what is now Southwark in south London. He left school at 14 to become an apprentice to a bookbinder.
This job, of course, gave him access to books, and he read a lot in his spare time. One book which particularly interested him was Jane Marcet's Conversations in Chemistry, a book written in 1806 bestseller which explained scientific topics for a general audience.
Faraday was particularly impressed by the scientist Humphrey Davy, who, in the year 1808 alone, had discovered five elements, including calcium and boron. Davy was also quite charismatic and gave popular lectures at the Royal Institution. One day a customer at the bookbinders gave Faraday a ticket to one of Davy's lectures. Faraday went along and made copious notes, which he later bound in leather and sent to Davy, asking if he could become Davy's assistant. Although it was unheard of for someone without a degree to be given such a post, Davy was impressed by the young man's intelligence and ambition. No doubt the presentation of the notes in a leather bound book helped, too. Davy hired him as a lab assistant. Later in life, when Davy was asked to name the greatest discovery he'd ever made, he replied, "Michael Faraday."
Even so, Faraday's lack of education was a handicap. He'd only learned basic maths, not trigonometry or algebra. This meant he couldn't prove his hypotheses mathematically, so they weren't always taken seriously. He teamed up with a young physicist called James Clerk Maxwell, who was good at maths and could provide the numbers work.
Faraday discovered benzene, invented an early form of Bunsen burner and coined terminology such as "anode", "cathode", "electrode" and "ion". He also invented the rubber balloon. He invented it for a scientific purpose, to contain hydrogen during his experiments, but toy manufacturers soon picked up on the idea and were selling them a year later.
One day in 1823, one of his experiments went spectacularly wrong. He'd sealed a sample of Chlorine hydrate inside a tube, and heated one end and cooled the other at the same time. As he did so he noticed that a peculiar Yellow liquid was starting to form. Curious to know what it was, he opened the tube, which resulted in a violent explosion. He somehow escaped being injured by flying shards of Glass and noticed two things. The air smelled of chlorine, and the temperature of the room had fallen. He surmised that a build up of pressure in the tube had caused the gas to turn to liquid and breaking it open had released the pressure, causing it to explode. It was one of those occasions when an accident ultimately resulted in something extremely useful – refrigerators.
Faraday turned down a knighthood. He did so on religious grounds as his family had always been churchgoers and he kept his faith. He said that it was against the word of the Bible to accumulate riches and pursue worldly reward, and he preferred to remain "plain Mr Faraday to the end." He did, however, accept a grace and favour house from Prince Albert which he lived in until he died.
He's responsible for those lectures which get shown on TV at Christmas. Making science accessible to the public was an aim dear to his heart, since he'd benefited from it himself. He started an initiative in which prominent scientists would give public lectures. The series started with John Millington speaking on “natural philosophy” in 1825. Faraday himself was the presenter on no less than 19 occasions. Since then, the Christmas lecturers have included David Attenborough, Carl Sagan, and Richard Dawkins.
Faraday also had an interest in maritime matters, and Lighthouses. He worked on ways to stop the bottoms of metal boats from corroding as well as on electric lighting for lighthouses.
From the age of 48, he suffered from a mysterious illness which affected his memory and also made him suffer from vertigo and depression. He had to take three years off work because of this illness but after that returned to work until his early 70s, although he still had occasional flare ups. One theory as to what caused his illness is exposure to Mercury.