Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday, FRS (22 September 1791 ? 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of the time) who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.

Faraday studied the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a DC electric current, and established the basis for the electromagnetic field concept in physics. He discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and laws of electrolysis. He established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.Michael Faraday entry at the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica hosted by LovetoKnow Retrieved January 2007.Institution of Engineering and Technology, London Archives, Michael Faraday His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology.

As a chemist, Faraday discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the bunsen burner and the system of oxidation numbers, and popularized terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion.

Although Faraday received little formal education and knew little of higher mathematics, such as calculus, he was one of the most influential scientists in history. Some historians of science refer to him as the best experimentalist in the history of science."best experimentalist in the history of science." Quoting Dr Peter Ford, from the University of Bath's Department of Physics. Accessed January 2007. The SI unit of capacitance, the farad, is named after him, as is the Faraday constant, the charge on a mole of electrons (about 96,485 coulombs). Faraday's law of induction states that a magnetic field changing in time creates a proportional electromotive force.

Faraday was the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a position to which he was appointed for life.

Albert Einstein kept a photograph of Faraday on his study wall alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell."Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Language of Mathematics", by Robyn Arianrhod

UQP, reviewed by Jane Gleeson-White, 10 November 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald.

Faraday was highly religious; he was a member of the Sandemanian Church, a Christian sect founded in 1730 which demanded total faith and commitment. Biographers have noted that "a strong sense of the unity of God and nature pervaded Faraday's life and work."