Michael Faraday and the Start of the Electric Era (2)

The modern life can’t be imagined without electricity. The era of electricity began in 1880-ies. The electricity has replaced the energy of steam. It became possible thanks to the discovery made in 1831 by Michael Faraday. He discovered the law of the electromagnetic induction. Just this law allows people elaborating electric power.

The electric power is the most convenient form of energy. Using electricity has changed civilization. But people have used electricity only little more than one hundred years. The reason is that in nature we meet electricity very seldom. In order to use electricity people had to learn how to get it artificially.

Nowadays people receive electricity using the law of electromagnetic induction, which gives the way to get electricity with the help of magnets. Elaboration of electric power by generators is based on this law. Without it bulbs would not shine, phones would not call and we would live in the other kind of world. The person who learnt to receive electricity artificially was Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867).

He was born in the suburb of London in a family of a smith. The family was so poor, that children used to receive a help from the religious community. It made 1 roll in a week. At 13 Faraday was apprenticed to a bookbinder. He read a lot of books being bound, especially in physics and chemistry. Thus he knew about electricity. Once, when Faraday was already 19 he heard four public lectures of the famous chemist Davy. Faraday made a synopsis, bound it as beautifully as he could and sent to Dewy together with the letter. He told that he wished to go in for science, but did not know the way. Surprised by unusual message, Davy invited Faraday to be his assistant. Davy said later, that of all his discoveries the most significant was Faraday. The work in Davy’s laboratory became for Faraday both school and university.

Faraday investigated electricity, magnets, light. He was convinced, that in nature everything is related. That’s why he thought out experiences, trying to find communications between phenomena. In 1831 he found out the dependence further called the law of electromagnetic induction. It tells that closed wire moving in a field of magnet gets electricity. This rule made it possible getting electricity in an artificial way.

Faraday got many offers for commercial use of his ideas, for building first electro generators. He rejected this kind of suggestions because of his pure scientific interests. The mass production of electricity started in about 50 years after his discovery.

Faraday is also considered to be the inventor of balloons. In 1824 he made first balloons for experiments with hydrogen. He wrote about it in a scientific journal. The next year the rubberier Hanock produced spheres in the form of a toy.

Ernest Rutherford (2)

English researchers caused three energy revolutions. In XVIII Watt started the age of steam, in XIX Faraday presented electricity, in XX nuclear power became possible thanks to Ernest Rutherford. It was he who created the planet model of atom. Before Rutherford atom was thought to be single and indivisible. Rutherford proved it to consist of smaller particles. He showed that dividing atom released energy. He doubted that it was possible to use it. Nevertheless nuclear power stations are based on the ideas of Rutherford. Besides, he was the first man who managed to transform an atom and get the atom of another substance. In 1919 he turned into nitrogen into oxygen.