Experimental Researches in Electricity

by Michael Faraday

Overview

Space and Time are pleased to bring you Michael Faraday’s ‘Experimental Researches in Electricity’. This classic is presented as a wonderfully presented edition with a fully interactive table of contents.

Although Faraday received little formal education he was one of the most influential scientists in history. It was by his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. He similarly discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology.

As a chemist, Faraday discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the Bunsen burner and the system of oxidation numbers, and popularised terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion. Faraday ultimately became the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a lifetime position.

Faraday was an excellent experimentalist who conveyed his ideas in clear and simple language; his mathematical abilities, however, did not extend as far as trigonometry or any but the simplest algebra. James Clerk Maxwell took the work of Faraday and others, and summarized it in a set of equations that is accepted as the basis of all modern theories of electromagnetic phenomena. On Faraday's uses of the lines of force, Maxwell wrote that they show Faraday "to have been in reality a mathematician of a very high order – one from whom the mathematicians of the future may derive valuable and fertile methods." The SI unit of capacitance, the farad, is named in his honour.

Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell. Physicist Ernest Rutherford stated; "When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time".

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784011895
Publisher:	Space and Time
Publication date:	02/19/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Michael Faraday: An Electric Personality
A major figure in nineteenth-century science, Michael Faraday (1791–1867) made immense contributions to the study of electricity and magnetism, discovering the laws of electromagnetic induction and electrolysis. His experiments are the foundation of subsequent electromagnetic technology. He also had a sense of humor. When the Prime Minister of England William Gladstone asked Faraday what the usefulness of electricity would be, Faraday famously replied, "Why, Sir, there is every possibility that you will soon be able to tax it!" In addition to being a great experimenter, Faraday had the gift of exposition for a popular audience, as seen in the books which Dover has reprinted, The Forces of Matter (2010), Experimental Researches in Electricity (2004), and perhaps his most famous single book for the general reader, The Chemical History of a Candle (2003).

It is reliably reported that Einstein had a photograph of Faraday on the wall of his study alongside portraits of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.

In the Author's Own Words:
"The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination: that in the most successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized." — Michael Faraday

Table of Contents

	Preface	v
	Biographical Note	vii
I.
1.	Identity of Electricities from Different Sources	1
i.	Voltaic Electricity	3
ii.	Ordinary Electricity	7
iii.	Magneto-Electricity	22
iv.	Thermo-Electricity	24
v.	Animal Electricity	24
2.	Relation by Measure of Common and Voltaic Electricity	27
II.
3.	New Law of Electric Conduction	32
4.	On Conducting Power generally	41
III.
5.	Electro-chemical Decomposition	47
i.	New Conditions of Electro-chemical Decomposition	48
ii.	Influence of Water in such Decomposition	54
iii.	Theory of Electro-chemical Decomposition	55
IV.
6.	Power of Platina, etc., to induce Combination	84
V.
5.	Electro-chemical Decomposition--Continued (Nomenclature)	111
iv.	Some General Conditions of Electro-chemical Decomposition	115
v.	Volta-electrometer	122
vi.	Primary and Secondary Results	133
vii.	Definite Nature and Extent of Electrochemical Forces	145
7.	Absolute Quantity of Electricity in the Molecules of Matter	163
VI.
8.	Electricity of the Voltaic Pile	172
i.	Simple Voltaic Circles	172
ii.	Electrolytic Intensity	203
iii.	Associated Voltaic Circles; or Battery	211
iv.	Resistance of an Electrolyte to Decomposition	218
v.	General Remarks on the Active Battery	226
VII.
9.	On the Source of Power in the Voltaic Pile	232
i.	Exciting Electrolytes being Good Conductors	238
ii.	Inactive Conducting Circles containing an Electrolyte	241
iii.	Active Circles containing Sulphuret of Potassium	259
VIII.
9.	On the Source of Power in the Voltaic Pile--Continued	271
iv.	The Exciting Chemical Force affected by Temperature	271
v.	The Exciting Chemical Force affected by Dilution	284
vi.	Differences in the Order of the Metallic Elements of Voltaic Circles	295
vii.	Active Voltaic Circles and Batteries without Metallic Contact	298
viii.	Considerations of the Sufficiency of Chemical Action	302
ix.	Thermo-electric Evidence	308
x.	Improbable Nature of the Assumed Contact Force	312
	On a Peculiar Voltaic Condition of Iron (Schoenbein)	317
	On a Peculiar Voltaic Condition of Iron (Faraday)	321
	Index	333