The Electric Life of Michael Faraday

About this book

Michael Faraday was one of the most gifted and intuitive experimentalists the world has ever seen. Born into poverty in 1791 and trained as a bookbinder Faraday rose through the ranks of the scientific elite even though at the time science was restricted to the wealthy or well-connected. During a career that spanned more than four decades Faraday laid the groundwork of our technological society-notably inventing the electric generator and electric motor. He also developed theories about space force and light that Einstein called the "greatest alteration . . . in our conception of the structure of reality since the foundation of theoretical physics by Newton.""The Electric Life of Michael Faraday" dramatizes Faradays passion for understanding the dynamics of nature. He manned the barricades against superstition and pseudoscience and pressed for a scientifically literate populace years before science had been deemed worthy of common study. A friend of Charles Dickens and an inspiration to Thomas Edison the deeply religious Faraday sought no financial gain from his discoveries content to reveal Gods presence through the design of nature. In "The Electric Life of Michael Faraday " Alan Hirshfeld presents a portrait of an icon of science making Faradays most significant discoveries about electricity and magnetism readily understandable and presenting his momentous contributions to the modern world.