к экзамену / MICHAEL FARADAY

MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1667)

Michael Faraday's family was very poor. His father was a blacksmith. At the age of thirteen Michael's schooling ended, and he got a job with a bookseller. The bookseller was also a bookbinder. Michael bound books and read many of them; these books taught him to think. He attended about a dozen lectures in natural philosophy and made his first acquaintance with Newton and other masters of science. He made notes of everything he heard, bound these notebooks himself and kept them all his life. He learned drawing, so that he might illustrate his notes with diagrams.

In 1813 Faraday was accepted as Sir Humphry Davy's assistant. After a few months of work in the laboratory, Sir Davy invited Faraday to go with him in his travels through Europe. Faraday made many acquaintances in the scientific world.

In 1815 he returned to England and worked in the laboratory in the Royal Institution for more than fifty years, that is to the end of his days.

Faraday succeeded in liquefying several gases by combining pressure and cold for the

purpose. He produced several new kinds of optical glasses. His greatest chemical discovery was benzene, which He separated from oil gas, and which since then found world-wide application.

Faraday's attention was turned to the relation between magnetism and electricity. In 1821 he placed a wire carrying an electric,current from a battery round the pole of a magnet. When the wire began to move he,also danced round the revolving circuit, his face shining with joy. Many years will pass before has discovery becomes the basis of the electric motor.

All that scientific world had known about electromagnetism by that time was that if current is run through a copper wire around a piece of iron, the iron becomes a magnet. Faraday asked himself: can electricity be made with the help of a magnet? For a long time he tried different experiments to solve the problem. He first produced a current in a wire by a magnet. In 1831 he showed that an electric current can induce another current in a different circuit. This discovery of the induction of electric currents later became the basis of all modem electrical engineering. Faraday founded the theory of electric and magnetic fields.

Faraday had no forma) education, especially in mathematics. All his conclusions and theories were based on many experiments. He recorded and described in his diary 16,041 experiments he had made. He believed only the fitngs which could be tested, shown and touched.

All his life Faraday remained poor. He believed that a scientist could not serve science for money.

He was a famous scientist but he remained a modest man. Through his love for truth and untiring work He became one of the greatest men of science.