The Philosopher's Tree: A Selection of Michael Faraday's Writings

by Michael Faraday, Peter Day

This book is an illustrated anthology of Faraday's writings compiled with commentary by Professor Peter Day, the current Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.Faraday's social origins, his thought processes, his methods of experimentation, and his religion have all been subjects of exhaustive analysis by historians and philosophers of science. One aspect of his work, which gives unique insight into the path by which his career developed, and the way in which his mind worked, appears not to have received much emphasis outside the realm of the academic namely, his writing.Throughout his life, from the time when he was a teenage apprentice bookbinder till his final resignation from the Royal Institution due to failing memory. Faraday wrote voluminously and his output took many forms. Apart from letters, Faraday kept journals (both scientific and personal); as a practising scientist, he wrote articles in learned as an adviser to Government and to many other agencies, he wrote as a supremely successful communicator (especially to young people) he left lecture notes and transcripts. All these add life, colour and depth of focus to the stereotypical scientific colossus. Though Faraday's life was largely lived within what might appear to be very narrow geographical confines (just a few miles around 21 Albemarle Street in London's West End), his professional, social and family relationships were extensive and diverse, and his responses to them equally complex; and through all the forms of expression that his multifaceted career required of him, one fact shines clearly. Not only is he in the world first eleven for science; he shows enviablequality as a writer.

Genres: Science, Physics, History

226 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Michael Faraday, FRS (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.

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".

Reviews

[Mahnoor Fatima · Rating 5 out of 5]

“For though, to all true philosophers, Science and Nature will have charms innumerable in every dress, yet I am sorry to say that the generality of mankind cannot accompany us one short hour unless the path is strewn with flowers.”
– Excerpt from the book

The Philosopher's Tree is a collection of Michael Faraday’s writings: his letters, his journal entries, his lectures, and even his lab notes. Organised by the author in the form of chapters, the letters come with a detailed context which give the book an undertone of a biography and state Faraday’s accounts his own voice thus allowing the reader to connect with him. The book starts from his more personal correspondence with his family and gradually progresses to his more formal communication with his friends and peers. This book not only reveals the thought-process behind arguably the most brilliant experimenter of history but also depicts his usually amicable relations with both the princes and paupers (though not as generous for the former) which he exhibits in his passionate communication to science to the masses.

The title, though appearing irrelevant at first, is in fact deeply rooted in Faraday’s philosophy of life. Derived from one of his quotes, it reflects Faraday’s aspiration to imitate a tree in growth: thorough yet natural and spontaneous. The book itself, though temporally nonlinear, illustrates different aspects of Faraday’s life — the strictly professional, the amicably personal, and everything in between — and how he rises from humble beginnings to become the Director of the Royal Society. Unlike most accomplished scientists pigeonholing their passions, one finds Faraday very much in touch with his ‘human side’ throughout the course of the book, almost like a Romantic poet. The book talks through Faraday’s trivial proficiency in mathematics, his frustration as a young scientist, his disdain for the nobility and their honours (which might be an aftermath of his experience with Lady Davy), and his unfaltering devotion to his noble profession of science discovery and science teaching among many other facets of his profound life.

The highlight of the book for me, as a science communicator and aspiring educator, is the chapter Science in the Lecture Theatre, wherein Faraday explains the requisites of a lecture, even elaborating such trivial details as ventilation and exits. While the idea may come off as overly meticulous at first, reading into the chapter itself reveals that this chapter is dedicated much more to the service of students than the lecturer. Throughout the chapter, and the book, Faraday puts the responsibility of effective science communication on the communicator than the audience. “I speak to an audience of juveniles as a juvenile myself,” he says to his audience of, on average, 14-year olds in his Christmas lectures — a tradition of arranging science lectures by the Royal Society for the laymen; started by Faraday himself; and continued, to this day, by the Royal Society.

Perhaps it’s not wrong to credit the exuberance of this book to its author, Peter Day: a scientist known for his larger-than-life personality. Being a Director of the Royal Institution himself, Day not only worked towards the progression of chemistry but also worked towards the popularisation and modernisation of science. A reflection of Day’s own life in retrospect of this book makes it quite evident that no other author would have honoured the warmth of Faraday’s personality alongside the brilliance of his genius mind as justly as Day. With Day passing away only this year, perhaps this book takes on a different colour altogether.