Michael Faraday: A Biography

by L. Pearce Williams

This definitive biography illustrates for the first time the full extent of Michael Faraday's monumental contributions to modern physics. For a major portion of his life. Faraday was one of the more controversial figures in nineteenth-century science. Through his ingenious discovery that electrical current could be induced by means of a magnet was generally applauded most of Faraday's contemporaries clung to orthodox theories, discounting the greater implications of Faraday's work. It is to Faraday's daring new vision of physical reality, however, that modern science owes the concept of field theory and the electromagnetic theory of light. Drawing on heretofore-unpublished materials as well as on Faraday's published papers and laboratory diaries. L. Pearce Williams depicts the metamorphosis of Faraday's ideas from radical speculation to orthodox scientific theory. Correcting the misconception that Faraday was an empiricist to whom theory was anathema. Williams re-creates each of Faraday's major experiments in step-by-step detail, carefully reconstructing the theoretical links among discoveries. Illustrated with 118 halftones and drawings, this readable and engaging book affords fresh insights into the scientific world of the nineteenth century and the singular contributions of one of its foremost and most controversial figures.

Genres: Biography, Physics

351 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1965

About the author

Leslie Pearce Williams was a chaired professor at Cornell University's Department of History who also chaired the department for many years. He was also the founder, in the mid-1980s, of Cornell's program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, which later became part of the Department of Science and Technology Studies.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the biography of Faraday that Faraday himself would have wanted. His lasting legacy, after all, is in his experiments and what he sought to prove with them. I would estimate 90% of the book focuses on the science. The author does an incredible job detailing Faraday's experiments, his thoughts about them, his failures, his successes, and his correspondences with other physicists. A physicist reading this book will be as pleased as reading Mehra's biography of Feynman.

I was disappointed by the parts that weren't about science. Faraday's personal life wasn't analyzed in any great depth and for large periods completely unaddressed. The author often did not list events chronologically (*except when it came to the science). I loved the author's writing style when he explained the science. I didn't like it otherwise (which as I stated only 10% of the book didn't focus on science.)

I study electricity and magnetism for my work. Overall I loved this book. I feel a little closer to one of the fathers of my field. I got lots of great quotes from Faraday (the author included tons of original quotes, which I loved, and then apologized to the reader for doing so, which I didn't understand.) I don't take as many of our modern theories for granted anymore now that I see how they originated and what they replaced.

[Nathan Dyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great biography on both Faraday's personal and professional life. This is an interesting read, even as a first introduction to Faraday, provided one already knows elementary electrostatics and magnetism theory.

In the middle there is a dense tackling of how Faraday conceptualized magnetism, with a lengthy comparison with the concepts held by Ampere. This can be a struggle to understand and I sometimes has to reread these parts to be able to appreciate them. I think this could have been resolved with more diagrams since the many experiments were so detailed and the physical concepts being so abstract, with Ampere and Faraday trying to understand magnetism by sometimes stretching into the lines of metaphysics.

[Frumenty]

I give up. This one is too hard for me. I'm struggling to understand the physics of electromagnetism in its most rational and elegant formulations, so dealing with all the messy hypotheses that failed to survive the rigours of scientific analysis is way over my head. Michael Faraday seems like a decent chap who made his way by dint of hard work and determination from very unpromising beginnings. Good on him. He deserved to succeed, and indeed he did.