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Michael Faraday

Original nameMichael Faraday

English Physicist and Chemist, Discoverer of Electromagnetic Induction

The Laws Behind the Technology · Theoretical Founders

The Law of Electromagnetic InductionThe Principle of the Generator and MotorThe Faraday Cage

Who they are

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) was born to a poor English blacksmith’s family and never received formal higher education; in his youth, as an apprentice at a bookbindery, he self-taught by reading widely the science books passing through his hands, and thereafter was hired as assistant to the chemist Humphry Davy, gradually growing into one of the most influential experimental physicists of the nineteenth century. His 1831 discovery of "electromagnetic induction" — that a changing magnetic field can induce a current in a conductor — is the core physical principle by which all later generators, transformers, and motors work; one might say that without Faraday’s discovery there would be no later electrical industry. He also proposed "lines of force," an intuitive physical picture describing the spatial distribution of electric and magnetic fields, and this highly suggestive visualization was thereafter developed by Maxwell into rigorous mathematical equations of the electromagnetic field. Faraday himself was indifferent to fame, repeatedly declining lofty scholarly posts such as president of the Royal Society and refusing a knighthood, insisting on devoting his life’s energy to scientific experiment and public science lectures; the "Christmas Lectures" series he presided over at the Royal Institution continues to this day, still one of Britain’s most renowned science-outreach events for young people.

Primary sourcesMichael Faraday, Experimental Researches in Electricity

Key stories

From Binding Apprentice to the Royal Institution

Faraday was born poor and from age fourteen was an apprentice at a bookbindery, self-taught by voraciously reading the science books he bound; by a chance he was given a ticket to a public lecture of the chemist Humphry Davy, and after it boldly wrote to Davy seeking work, at last hired as his lab assistant, thus entering the hall of scientific research — this experience of "self-made and self-recommended" was thereafter long a model story inspiring youths of humble origin to take up science.

A Magnet and a Coil Lit the Age of Electricity

Through repeated experiment Faraday found that when a magnet moved rapidly near a wire coil, a current was instantly induced in the coil, and this "electromagnetic induction" revealed the deep mutual conversion of electricity and magnetism; within a few decades generators and motors designed on this principle appeared in turn, and human society formally entered a new era driven by electricity — yet Faraday, poor at mathematical derivation, never in his life turned this discovery into rigorous mathematical equations, a task at last completed by his successor Maxwell.

Relationships

Mentor

🪁Benjamin Franklin

Disciple

🌊James Clerk Maxwell ⚡Nikola Tesla

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

"Faraday" as the unit of capacitanceThe SI unit of capacitance, the "farad" (F), is named for him, and the principle of the "Faraday cage" for shielding electromagnetic fields is still widely applied in everyday and professional settings such as microwave ovens and MRI rooms.

Appears in

The World Lit by Electric CurrentFaraday’s Coil, Maxwell’s Equations

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