Science · Engineering & invention
Michael Faraday
Experimental scientist; electricity and magnetism
Photograph · Image credit
Who they are
Michael Faraday investigated how changing electrical and magnetic conditions generate currents. His 1831 experiments included a ring wound with separate coils and tests involving magnets and circuits. These observations supplied a foundation for later electromagnetic theory; James Clerk Maxwell explicitly discussed Faraday’s experimental work when developing a field-based account.
He links the timeline’s experimental induction milestone with Maxwell’s later synthesis.
Selected contributions
- Investigated induced electrical effects with ring-coil and magnet experiments.Source ↗Source 2 ↗
- Supplied experimental findings explicitly discussed in Maxwell’s electromagnetic-field paper.Source ↗
Selected works
Academic paper · 1832
Experimental Researches in Electricity (First Series)
Faraday describes induction experiments in which changing electrical or magnetic conditions produce temporary currents in another circuit. The account records apparatus, observations and reversals rather than starting from a finished field theory.
Read to the Royal Society on November 24, 1831; journal publication 1832. Linked transcription is the 1849 second edition of Volume I; its preface retains the first collected edition’s March 1839 date.
Reading scope & citation
Prior selected experiment passages reused. Fresh Gutenberg title page/edition/First Series heading and JSTOR journal metadata inspected; original journal scan not reread.
In the timeline
Biography sources & portrait credit
- Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume I, First Series ↗1839 collected edition, transcribed by Project Gutenberg
- Michael Faraday's ring-coil apparatus ↗The Royal Institution
- A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, Part I ↗Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society; transcription at Wikisource
- Experimental Researches in Electricity ↗Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London / JSTOR
- Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume I, second edition ↗Richard and John Edward Taylor; Project Gutenberg transcription
Portrait credit
Unknown photographer. Public domain (Commons file-specific copyright declaration). Via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph. Cropped to 4:5, resized to 320 × 400 and converted to WebP.
Image source & identification ↗ · Public domain (Commons file-specific copyright declaration) ↗
