ELECTRIC LIFE OF MICHEAL FARADAY

1.You wouldn't be reading this if it weren't for Michael Faraday. In this excellent book, the man whose name many of us remember from our physics or electronics texts and who made possible the Internet by which these words come to you, is brought to life as a real person with a truly engaging life story.

2.Faraday's contributions to electrical science were numerous and far-reaching. Among others, he discovered electrical induction (making the world's first transformer), made the first electric motor, made the first electric generator. and was the first to show that magnetic effects could change the polarization of light (what now is called Faraday rotation

3. Faraday's later speculations about electric fields were, according to Maxwell, what spurred the latter to begin the work that led to Maxwell's famous equations describing electromagnetic radiation. When Hertz first produced radio waves in his laboratory, he also acknowledged that he was following on the work of not only Maxwell but of Faraday

4.Faraday entered the world of science through the back door. The son of a blacksmith, Faraday became an apprentice bookbinder.

5.Inspired by some of the scientific texts he was binding, he began experimenting in his spare time. Self-taught in science through his reading and his experiments, Faraday began his scientific career as a menial assistant to famed British scientist Humphrey Davy.

6.Eventually, he rose to the directorship of a research institute, fellowship in Britain's Royal Society and acclaim as one of the world's leading scientists. Hirshfeld's account of Faraday's career gives us an intriguing glimpse into the sociology and politics of 19th-Century science.