Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday FRS was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and
electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction,
diamagnetism and electrolysis.
Born: 22 September 1791, Newington Butts, London, United Kingdom/Newington, Surrey, England
Died: 25 August 1867, Hampton Court Palace, Molesey, United Kingdom
Spouse: Sarah Barnard (m. 1821–1867)
Fields: Physics (English) ; Chemistry
Subjects of studies: electromagnetism, electric motor, electric generator, chlorine, benzene
Awards: Copley Medal (1838), Royal Society Bakerian Medal (1832), Royal Medal, Rumford Medal, more
Influenced by: Humphry Davy, François Arago, William Thomas Brande
Early Life
Michael Faraday was one of the great scientists of the 19th century. Faraday was born 22 September
1791 in Newington Butts in Surrey. (The place where he was born is now part of London). He was one of
4 children. Faraday came from a relatively humble background. His father James was a blacksmith.
Faraday had only a basic education and in 1804 he became an errand boy for a bookseller. When he was
14 he became an apprentice bookbinder. However, Michael Faraday became very interested in science,
especially when reading a book in the third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica who the article was
about electricity. In 1813 he got a job as a laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in
London (Sir Humphry Davy). Then in 1813-1815 Faraday toured France, Switzerland, Italy and Southern
Germany with Humphry Davy.
Faraday’s second apprenticeship, under Davy, came to an end in 1820. By then he had learned
chemistry as thoroughly as anyone alive. He had also had ample opportunity to practice chemical
analyses and laboratory techniques to the point of complete mastery, and he had developed his
theoretical views to the point that they could guide him in his researches. He produced the first known
compounds of carbon and chlorine, C2Cl6 and C2Cl4.
On 12 June 1821 Faraday married Sarah Barnard. The couple did not have children.
The Great Scientist
The same year, 1821 Faraday discovered electromagnetic rotation. Then in Meanwhile in 1825 Faraday
was made the director of the laboratory at the Royal Institution. Faraday was also an accomplished
chemist. In 1825 he isolated benzene. In 1830 Faraday became a professor of chemistry at the Royal
Military Academy in Woolwich. (He held the post until 1852). In 1831, Michael Faraday discovered
electromagnetic induction work with Charles (later Sir Charles) Wheatstone on the theory of sound,
another vibrational phenomenon. the principle behind the electricity generator. In 1836 he became a
scientific adviser to Trinity House (the body responsible for lighthouses).
Michael Faraday was also a devout member of the Sandemanian Church (a church founded in Scotland
in the 18th century). Michael Faraday died on 25 August 1867. He was 75. Faraday was buried in
Highgate Cemetery. Today Faraday is remembered as a great chemist and physicist
This discovery led Faraday to contemplate the nature of electricity. Unlike his contemporaries, he was
not convinced that electricity was a material fluid that flowed through wires like water through a pipe.
Instead, he thought of it as a vibration or force that was somehow transmitted as the result of tensions
created in the conductor. One of his first experiments after his discovery of electromagnetic rotation was
to pass a ray of polarized light through a solution in which electrochemical decomposition was taking
place in order to detect the intermolecular strains that he thought must be produced by the passage of
an electric current. During the 1820s he kept coming back to this idea, but always without result.
