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English experimental physicist, founder of
the science of electromagnetism. He was the son of a Yorkshire blacksmith
and at 13 became apprenticed to a bookseller in London. In 1813 he became
laboratory assistant to Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution, succeeding
him as professor of chemistry in 1833. He set himself the problem of
finding the connections between the forces of light, heat, electricity
and magnetism and his discoveries, translated by Maxwell into a single
mathematical theory of electromagnetism, led to the modern developments
in physics and electronics. He wrote in 1832 "I cannot but think that
the action of electricity and magnetism is propagated through space
in some form of vibration". James Maxwell heard about this, and proved
by mathematical formula that Faraday's electromagnetic waves travelled
through the air at the speed exactly similar to that of light, that
is 186,000 miles per second. The German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
next comes into the line of discoverers by practically testing Maxwell's
theorys. Faraday also inaugurated the Christmas lectures at the Royal
Institution in London. |