Faraday

Faraday Michael (Michael Faraday, 1791-1867) famous English physicist, born in London into the poor family of a blacksmith. At 13 years old he finished elementary school where he 'studied reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic.' Until 22 years old F. worked in a bookbinding workshop. F. did not receive higher education. From his early youth he loved to read books on physics and chemistry and conducted physical and chemical experiments. With the assistance of Davy in 1813 he received a position as assistant in the chemical laboratory of the Royal Institute, where began and continued until the end of his creative scientific life; later F. took the position of director of the physical and chemical laboratories in this institute. The first works of F. on chemistry and physics were: 'On the chemical analysis of caustic Tuscan lime,' published in 1816, and 'On the singing flame' in 1818. Numerous brilliant discoveries and research by F. created for him the reputation of the greatest genius scientist and constituted an entire epoch in the history of physics and chemistry. The areas of F.'s work were very diverse; he belongs cardinal research on electricity, electromagnetism, optics, heat, electrochemistry and others; F. was the first to obtain gases in a liquid state; he discovered gasoline. F. discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, which became the basis of electrical engineering; powerful generators of electrical energy, transformers for transmission of electrical energy over distance, high-voltage installations and many others-all this became a consequence and development of his discovery. The laws of electrolysis discovered by F. formed the basis of electrochemistry, on which electrometallurgy is based. F.'s study of the phenomenon of electrostatic induction clarified the role of the medium in electrical interactions; he introduced into science the concept of force lines, which are still used today. The mathematical interpretation and theoretical development of Faraday's ideas by Maxwell became the basis of the electromagnetic theory of light, a theory that received experimental confirmation in the experiments of Hertz. In the brilliant triad Faraday-Maxwell-Hertz, which created the electromagnetic picture of the world, Faraday occupies the first place.