English bookbinder who became interested in Electricity. He obtained an assistantship in
Davy's lab, then began to conduct his own experiments. He wrote a review article on
current views about Electricity and Magnetism in 1821, for which he reproduced
Oersted's experiment. He was one of the greatest experimenters ever. Because he was self
trained, however, he had no grasp of mathematics and could therefore not understand a
word of Ampere's papers. In the course of his experiments, Faraday discovered that a
suspended magnet would revolve around a current bearing wire, leading him to propose that
magnetism was a circular force. He also discovered magnetic optical rotation, invented
the Dynamo (a device capable of converting electricity to motion) in 1821, discovered
electromagnetic induction in 1831, and devised the laws of chemical electro-deposition of
metals from solutions in 1857.
He formulated the second law of electrolysis: ``the amounts of bodies which are
equivalent to each other in their ordinary chemical action have equal quantities of
electricity naturally associated with them.'' He published many of his results in the
three-volume Experimental Researches in Electricity (1839-1855). One of his most
important contributions to physics was his development of the concept of a field to
describe magnetic and electric forces in 1845. He first suggested that current produces a
electric ``tension'' which produced an ``electrotonic state,'' or polarization of matter
molecules, and was responsible for transmitting the electric force. He experimented with
dielectrics in a Capacitor. After further experimentation, he abandoned the concept of
electrotonic forces in favor of ``lines of force.'' He maintained that these lines could
be made visible in a Magnet using iron filings. Faraday was an advocate of the law of
Energy Conservation , believing that possibility of ``the production of any one [power]
from another, or the conversion of into another.''
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