Summary
Highlights
Unlike famous scientists from wealthy families, Michael Faraday was born into poverty in 19th-century England. He self-taught science by reading books while working at a bookshop and was captivated by Humphry Davy's lectures on chemistry and electricity.
Through his work as Davy's lab assistant, Faraday learned about magnetism and the ongoing debate regarding its connection to electricity. After Oersted's discovery that electric current affected a compass, Faraday hypothesized that electricity wasn't a fluid but a vibration linked to magnetism.
Faraday designed an experiment using an iron ring with two coils. He found that switching on an electric current in one coil induced a current in the other, deducing that magnetic vibrations traveled through the ring. He then showed that moving a magnet through a coil directly generated an electric current, leading to the discovery of magnetic induction.
In 1831, Faraday utilized magnetic induction to construct the first dynamo, converting movement into electricity. This invention made electricity popular and widely available, democratizing its use.