Faraday, Michael

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

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Faraday's father was a blacksmith recently moved south from Westmorland. The young Faraday's formal education was limited to attendance at "a Common Day School", and then he worked as an errand boy for George Riebau, a bookseller and bookbinder in London's West End. Riebau subsequently took him as an apprentice bookbinder, and Faraday seized every opportunity to read the books that came his way, especially scientific works.

A customer in the shop gave Faraday tickets to hear Sir Humphry Davy lecturing at the Royal Institution. He made notes of the lectures, bound them and sent them to Davy, asking for scientific employment. When a vacancy arose for a laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution, Davy remembered Faraday, who he took as his assistant on an 18- month tour of France, Italy and Switzerland (despite the fact that Britain and France were at war!). The tour, and especially Davy's constant company and readiness to explain matters, was a scientific education for Faraday, who returned to the Royal Institution as a competent chemist in his own right. Faraday was interested in electricity, which was then viewed as a branch of chemistry. After Oersted's announcement in 1820 that an electric current could affect a magnet, Faraday devised an arrangement in 1821 for producing continuous motion from an electric current and a magnet. This was the basis of the electric motor. Ten years later, after much thought and experiment, he achieved the converse of Oersted's effect, the production of an electric current from a magnet. This was magneto-electric induction, the basis of the electric generator.

Electrical engineers usually regard Faraday as the "father" of their profession, but Faraday himself was not primarily interested in the practical applications of his discoveries. His driving motivation was to understand the forces of nature, such as electricity and magnetism, and the relationship between them. Faraday delighted in telling others about science, and studied what made a good scientific lecturer. At the Royal Institution he introduced the Friday Evening Discourses and also the Christmas Lectures for Young People, now televised in the UK every Christmas.

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Faraday, Michael Faraday.

Michael Faraday, Faraday.

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Michael Faraday (1791-1867), English chemist and physicist who discovered of electromagnetism and who contributed much to electrochemistry

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Weapons and armour

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His family came from Germany and he was the son of a music master. He first became interested in science at the age of 14, when visiting his mineralogist uncle in Hamburg, and studied chemistry at the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London. In 1845 he became one of the twenty-six founding students, under A.W.von Hofmann, of the Royal College of Chemistry. Such was his aptitude for the subject that within two years he became von Hermann's assistant and demonstrator. In 1851 Abel was appointed Lecturer in Chemistry, succeeding Michael Faraday, at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and it was while there that he wrote his Handbook of Chemistry, which was co-authored by his assistant, Charles Bloxam.

Abel's four years at the Royal Military Academy served to foster his interest in explosives, but it was during his thirty-four years, beginning in 1854, as Ordnance Chemist at the Royal Arsenal and at Woolwich that he consolidated and developed his reputation as one of the international leaders in his field. In 1860 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, but it was his studies during the 1870s into the chemical changes that occur during explosions, and which were the subject of numerous papers, that formed the backbone of his work. It was he who established the means of storing gun-cotton without the danger of spontaneous explosion, but he also developed devices (the Abel Open Test and Close Test) for measuring the flashpoint of petroleum. He also became interested in metal alloys, carrying out much useful work on their composition. A further avenue of research occurred in 1881 when he was appointed a member of the Royal Commission set up to investigate safety in mines after the explosion that year in the Sealham Colliery. His resultant study on dangerous dusts did much to further understanding on the use of explosives underground and to improve the safety record of the coal-mining industry. The achievement for which he is most remembered, however, came in 1889, when, in conjunction with Sir James Dewar, he invented cordite. This stable explosive, made of wood fibre, nitric acid and glycerine, had the vital advantage of being a "smokeless powder", which meant that, unlike the traditional ammunition propellant, gunpowder ("black powder"), the firer's position was not given away when the weapon was discharged. Although much of the preliminary work had been done by the Frenchman Paul Vieille, it was Abel who perfected it, with the result that cordite quickly became the British Army's standard explosive.

Abel married, and was widowed, twice. He had no children, but died heaped in both scientific honours and those from a grateful country.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Davidson, son of an Aberdeen merchant, attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, between 1819 and 1822: his studies included mathematics, mechanics and chemistry. He subsequently joined his father's grocery business, which from time to time received enquiries for yeast: to meet these, Davidson began to manufacture yeast for sale and from that start built up a successful chemical manufacturing business with the emphasis on yeast and dyes. About 1837 he started to experiment first with electric batteries and then with motors. He invented a form of electromagnetic engine in which soft iron bars arranged on the periphery of a wooden cylinder, parallel to its axis, around which the cylinder could rotate, were attracted by fixed electromagnets. These were energized in turn by current controlled by a simple commutaring device. Electric current was produced by his batteries. His activities were brought to the attention of Michael Faraday and to the scientific world in general by a letter from Professor Forbes of King's College, Aberdeen. Davidson declined to patent his inventions, believing that all should be able freely to draw advantage from them, and in order to afford an opportunity for all interested parties to inspect them an exhibition was held at 36 Union Street, Aberdeen, in October 1840 to demonstrate his "apparatus actuated by electro-magnetic power". It included: a model locomotive carriage, large enough to carry two people, that ran on a railway; a turning lathe with tools for visitors to use; and a small printing machine. In the spring of 1842 he put on a similar exhibition in Edinburgh, this time including a sawmill. Davidson sought support from railway companies for further experiments and the construction of an electromagnetic locomotive; the Edinburgh exhibition successfully attracted the attention of the proprietors of the Edinburgh 585\& Glasgow Railway (E \& GR), whose line had been opened in February 1842. Davidson built a full-size locomotive incorporating his principle, apparently at the expense of the railway company. The locomotive weighed 7 tons: each of its two axles carried a cylinder upon which were fastened three iron bars, and four electromagnets were arranged in pairs on each side of the cylinders. The motors he used were reluctance motors, the power source being zinc-iron batteries. It was named Galvani and was demonstrated on the E \& GR that autumn, when it achieved a speed of 4 mph (6.4 km/h) while hauling a load of 6 tons over a distance of 1 1/2 miles (2.4 km); it was the first electric locomotive. Nevertheless, further support from the railway company was not forthcoming, although to some railway workers the locomotive seems to have appeared promising enough: they destroyed it in Luddite reaction. Davidson staged a further exhibition in London in 1843 without result and then, the cost of battery chemicals being high, ceased further experiments of this type. He survived long enough to see the electric railway become truly practicable in the 1880s.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport, Mining and extraction technology, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Educated at Truro Grammar School, he then studied under Dr Avery at Wadebridge to become a doctor of medicine. He settled as a surgeon in Wadebridge, spending his leisure time in building an organ and in the study of chemistry and mechanical science. He married Elizabeth Symons in 1814, and in 1820 moved with his wife to London. He delivered a course of lectures at the Surrey Institution on the elements of chemical science, attended by, amongst others, the young Michael Faraday. While there, Gurney made his first invention, the oxyhydrogen blowpipe. For this he received the Gold Medal of the Society of Arts. He experimented with lime and magnesia for the production of an illuminant for lighthouses with some success. He invented a musical instrument of glasses played like a piano.

In 1823 he started experiments related to steam and locomotion which necessitated taking a partner in to his medical practice, from which he resigned shortly after. His objective was to produce a steam-driven vehicle to run on common roads. His invention of the steam-jet of blast greatly improved the performance of the steam engine. In 1827 he took his steam carriage to Cyfarthfa at the request of Mr Crawshaw, and while there applied his steam-jet to the blast furnaces, greatly improving their performance in the manufacture of iron. Much of the success of George Stephenson's steam engine, the Rocket was due to Gurney's steam blast.

In July 1829 Gurney made a historic trip with his road locomotive. This was from London to Bath and back, which was accomplished at a speed of 18 mph (29 km/h) and was made at the instigation of the Quartermaster-General of the Army. So successful was the carriage that Sir Charles Dance started to run a regular service with it between Gloucester and Cheltenham. This ran for three months without accident, until Parliament introduced prohibitive taxation on all self-propelled vehicles. A House of Commons committee proposed that these should be abolished as inhibiting progress, but this was not done. Sir Goldsworthy petitioned Parliament on the harm being done to him, but nothing was done and the coming of the railways put the matter beyond consideration. He devoted his time to finding other uses for the steam-jet: it was used for extinguishing fires in coal-mines, some of which had been burning for many years; he developed a stove for the production of gas from oil and other fatty substances, intended for lighthouses; he was responsible for the heating and the lighting of both the old and the new Houses of Parliament. His evidence after a colliery explosion resulted in an Act of Parliament requiring all mines to have two shafts. He was knighted in 1863, the same year that he suffered a stroke which incapacitated him. He retired to his house at Reeds, near Bude, where he was looked after by his daughter, Anna.

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SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology

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Constrained by poverty despite displaying considerable gifts, particularly in the realm of mathematics, he became a surgeon in the Prussian Army but was able to undertake research; in 1842 he wrote a thesis on the discovery of nerve cells in ganglia. He became Professor of Physiology in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1849. moving to a similar post in Bonn in 1855, to Heidelberg in 1858, and the Chair of Physic in Berlin in 1871. This latter included the directorship of the physicotechnical institute at Charlottenburg.

His investigations over the years encompassed almost the whole field of science, including physiology, physiological optics, physiological acoustics, chemistry, mathematics, electricity and magnetism, meteorology and theoretical mechanics. He also made important additions to the understanding of putrefaction and fermentation.

Helmholtz's contributions to the understanding of vision and optics ranged widely, but one of the most significant was the definitive development of the ophthalmoscope in 1851. Incorporating some of the aspects of Babbage's original suggestions (which were not brought to practical fruition), his instrument inaugurated a new diagnostic era in ophthalmology, particularly when his method of direct ophthalmoscopy was supplemented by the indirect method of Ruete. His personal life was uneventful, in contrast to his inventive achievements, which were perhaps unequalled in scope in his century. Michael Faraday's tribute, "the absolute simplicity, modesty and untroubled purity of his disposition had a charm such as I have never encountered in another man", is therefore all the more to be valued.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Telecommunications

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Sent to stay with relatives at the age of 6 because of the illness of his father, when the latter died in 1811 Henry was apprenticed to a silversmith and then turned to the stage. Whilst he was ill himself, a book on science fired his interest and he began studying at Albany Academy, working as a tutor to finance his studies. Initially intending to pursue medicine, he then spent some time as a surveyor before becoming Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Albany Academy in 1826. There he became interested in the improvement of electromagnets and discovered that the use of an increased number of turns of wire round the core greatly increased their power; by 1831 he was able to supply to Yale a magnet capable of lifting almost a ton weight. During this time he also discovered the principles of magnetic induction and self-inductance. In the same year he made, but did not patent, a cable telegraph system capable of working over a distance of 1 mile (1.6 km). It was at this time, too, that he found that adiabatic expansion of gases led to their sudden cooling, thus paving the way for the development of refrigerators. For this he was recommended for, but never received, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. Five years later he became Professor of Natural Philosophy at New Jersey College (later Princeton University), where he deduced the laws governing the operation of transformers and observed that changes in magnetic flux induced electric currents in conductors. Later he also observed that spark discharges caused electrical effects at a distance. He therefore came close to the discovery of radio waves. In 1836 he was granted a year's leave of absence and travelled to Europe, where he was able to meet Michael Faraday. It was with his help that in 1844 Samuel Morse set up the first patented electric telegraph, but, sadly, the latter seems to have reaped all the credit and financial rewards. In 1846 he became the first secretary of the Washington Smithsonian Institute and did much to develop government support for scientific research. As a result of his efforts some 500 telegraph stations across the country were equipped with meteorological equipment to supply weather information by telegraph to a central location, a facility that eventually became the US National Weather Bureau. From 1852 he was a member of the Lighthouse Board, contributing to improvements in lighting and sound warning systems and becoming its chairman in 1871. During the Civil War he was a technical advisor to President Lincoln. He was a founder of the National Academy of Science and served as its President for eleven years.

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