Hans Christian Oersted launched a new epoch in science when he discovered that electricity

and magnetism are linked. He showed by experiment that an electric current flowing through a wire could
move a nearby magnet. The discovery of electromagnetism set the stage for the eventual development of our
modern technology-based world. Oersted also discovered the chemical compound piperine and achieved the
first isolation of the element aluminum.

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Beginnings

Hans Christian Oersted (Ørsted in Danish) was born in the small town of Rudkøbing on the island of
Langeland, Denmark, on August 14, 1777. His father was Soeren Christian Oersted, a pharmacist, and his
mother was Karen Hermandsen.

Hans and his younger brother Anders were educated through a combination of home schooling and private
tutors – one a German wigmaker who, among other things, taught the brothers to speak fluent German.
Anders would one day become Prime Minister of Denmark.

Hans became interested in chemistry at the age of 12 after he started helping in his father’s pharmacy. At the
age of 16 he passed the entrance exam for the University of Copenhagen. There he studied pharmacology,
graduating in 1796 at age 19.

Three more years of work allowed him to graduate with a Ph.D. Today most awards of Ph.D. (Doctor of
Philosophy) are not actually made for researching philosophy, but Hans Christian Oersted’s was. The
philosophy in this case was Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of nature, which as we’ll see, helped shape Oersted’s
view of the world.

The Science of Hans Christian Oersted

By the year 1800 Oersted had become a pharmacy manager. In this year a scientific revolution began.
Alessandro Volta announced details of his battery, opening new scientific horizons for chemists and physicists.
Volta’s battery enabled scientists to produce a steady flow of electricity for the first time and, happily, the
materials needed to build one were easily obtained.

Oersted dived into the new science and, in 1801, published a scientific paper describing a new battery he had
invented. He also described a method for calculating the amount of electric current flowing by measuring the
rate of gas production when electricity was used to split water.

Oersted was given funding by the Danish government to further his education in other European countries; he
spent the years 1801 to 1803 in Germany and France.
In Germany he became influenced by the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Schelling who believed all of
nature was unified. Rather grandly, Schelling believed scientists should strive to find the theory underlying all
of nature rather than using experiments to study isolated parts of nature.

Friedrich Schelling“…all phenomena are correlated in one absolute and necessary law, from which they can all
be deduced.”

Friedrich Schelling, 1775 – 1854

Werke, III

Oersted absorbed much of Schelling’s philosophy of science, but disagreed with Schelling’s disdain for
experimental work. Oersted had learned too much respect for practical work as a pharmacist to ignore the
power of an experiment. However, he shared Schelling’s enthusiasm for the unity of nature.

Hans Christian Oersted“Our physics would thus be no longer a collection of fragments on motion, on heat, on
air, on light, on electricity, on magnetism, and who knows what else, but we would include the whole universe
in one system.”

Hans Christian Oersted

Materialen zu einer Chemie des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1803

In the Germany city of Jena, Oersted met and befriended the German physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter. They
shared a common interest in electricity. Ritter was also enthusiastic about Schelling’s philosophy of an
underlying harmony of nature; in particular he was convinced that electricity and magnetism were closely
linked.

Professor Oersted

After returning from his travels, Oersted was funded by the Danish government to continue his research work.
In 1806, aged 29, he became a professor of physics at the University of Copenhagen. He was an excellent
lecturer and students flocked to his classes. Sometimes he lectured for as many as five hours a day – a very
heavy load. In addition to lecturing he established physics and chemistry laboratories for research and
teaching.

Discovery of Electromagnetism

Oersted’s famous experiment, showing that electricity and magnetism are linked, took place during a lecture
on April 21, 1820, when Oersted was 42 years old.
In this experiment he passed electric current through a wire, which caused a nearby magnetic compass needle
to move.

Oersted's experiment

Oersted holds a wire above a magnetic needle supported on a pivot. The needle is deflected when electric
current flows through the wire.

Oersted notes

Oersted’s original notes. He shows how an electric current flowing in a wire causes a nearby magnetized
compass needle to turn.

Over the next few months Oersted carried out more experiments, discovering that electric current produces a
circular magnetic effect around it.

circular magnetic field

Oersted showed that electric current produces a circular magnetic effect around it.

Oersted announced his discovery on July 21, 1820, in a paper consisting of four pages of Latin, which was
soon translated into most of the main European languages. In English Oersted’s paper had the title
Experiments on the Effect of a Current of Electricity on the Magnetic Needle.

By September 1820 François Arago was demonstrating the electromagnetic effect to France’s scientific elite at
the French Academy, which almost immediately led André-Marie Ampère to take the next great steps in the
story of electromagnetism.

Just as Volta’s invention of the battery had opened new horizons in physics and chemistry, Oersted’s discovery
of a link between electricity and magnetism unleashed a revolution in physics leading us into our current
digital world.

Johan Georg Forchhammer“Oersted was searching for the connection between those two great forces of
nature. His previous writings bear witness to this, and I, who associated with him daily in the years 1818 to
1819, can state from my own experience that the thought of discovering this still mysterious connection
constantly filled his mind.”

Johan Georg Forchhammer, 1794 – 1865

Chemist and Geologist

Awards
The British Royal Society awarded Oersted the 1820 Copley Medal, the greatest prize in science, for his
discovery of electromagnetism. Previous prize winners included Benjamin Franklin and Alessandro Volta. The
French Academy sent Oersted 3000 gold francs.

Was Oersted First?

It is sometimes claimed electromagnetism was actually discovered by Italian jurist (and physics enthusiast)
Gian Domenico Romagnosi.

In 1802 two Italian newspapers carried accounts from Romagnosi of a magnetic needle deflecting near a
battery he had built.

Today, looking at his method, it is clear Romagnosi’s experiment did not involve a complete electric circuit, so
electric current could not have flowed. Without current, there can have been no electromagnetic effect.

The needle in Romagnosi’s experiment was probably deflected by a build-up of static electric charges on the
needle; the needle moved as a result of the mutual repulsion of alike electric charges.

So, Oersted was first.

Oersted’s Chemistry and the Isolation of Aluminum

Although a professor of physics, Oersted, with his pharmacological background, was drawn to chemistry.

At first he was opposed to Antoine Lavoisier’s concept of using the chemical elements as a means of
rationalizing and understanding chemistry. Oersted looked for something more in harmony with the
‘everything should be governed by a single law of nature’ ideas of Friedrich Schelling.

He also sought to anchor chemistry in the ideas of philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose work Oersted had
studied enthusiastically for his doctoral thesis. Kant believed matter could be divided infinitely (i.e. there were
no atoms) and that all matter was constructed from two fundamental, opposing forces, which were in
equilibrium with one another.

For a time this led the young Professor Oersted to promote the fanciful theories of the Hungarian chemist
Jakob Joseph Winterl, who believed all of chemistry could be understood by the opposing forces of two
(fictitious) substances – Andronia (the principle of acidity) and Thelycke (the principle of alkalinity). Winterl
believed these substances were more fundamental than the elements.
Hans Christian Oersted“The constituent principles of heat which play their role in the alkalis and acids, in
electricity, and in light are also the principles of magnetism, and thus we have the unity of all forces… and the
former physical sciences thus combine into one united physics.”

Hans Christian Oersted

Materialen zu einer Chemie des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1803

After abandoning his adherence to Winterl’s ideas, Oersted made a number of important contributions to
chemistry.

In 1819 he discovered piperine, the chemical compound responsible for the strong, sharp flavor of black
pepper.

His most significant contribution was the first ever isolation of the element aluminum. In 1825 he reported:

a lump of metal which in color and luster somewhat resembles tin.

He produced aluminum by reducing aluminum chloride with a potassium-mercury amalgam.

Thought Experiments

Today, when we hear the words Thought Experiment, we often think of Albert Einstein’s famous thought
experiments which guided him towards his theories of relativity.

A thought experiment consists of asking “what if…?” and then logically thinking through the consequences.

Oersted was actually the first person to use the German term made famous by Einsten: Gedankenexperiment.

The Other Famous Hans Christian

Hans Christian Oersted became great friends with the Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson before the writer
became famous. Oersted became a champion for Anderson’s fairy tales, helping to get them published in
1835.

Some Personal Details and the End

In 1814 Oersted married Inger Birgitte Ballum, the daughter of a pastor, and in the following years the couple
had three sons and four daughters.

Hans Christian Oersted died aged 73 on March 9, 1851, in Copenhagen after a short illness.

He was buried in the Assistens Cemetery in the Copenhagen suburb of Noerrebro. This is also the final resting
place of the physicist Niels Bohr, writer Hans Christian Andersen, and philosopher Soeren Kierkegaard.

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Galileo Galilei – most people simply call him Galileo – was one of the most significant people in the
history of science. He lived at a crucial crossroads in time when different strands of thought met and clashed.
These were:

natural philosophy based on Aristotle’s incorrect ideas.

the beliefs of the Catholic Church at the time.

evidence-based scientific research.

In the end, the ideas of Galileo and other scientists triumphed, because they were able to prove them to be
true.

Although his ideas triumphed, Galileo paid a high price for his science: he spent the last eight years of his life
under house arrest, and the Catholic Church banned the publication of anything written by him.

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Galileo’s Early Years and Education

Galileo Galilei was born in the Italian city of Pisa on February 15, 1564. He was the eldest son of Vincenzo
Galilei and Giulia Ammannati.

His father was a well-known composer, who played the lute, a stringed instrument.

Galileo himself also became a skilled lute player.

As a young man, Galileo was torn between training to become a catholic priest or a doctor of medicine. His
father encouraged him to study medicine, and Galileo took his father’s advice, starting a medical course at the
University of Pisa when he was 17 years old. Soon, however, his father’s plans came unstuck.

Math, Music, Physics and Art

Aged 18, Galileo stumbled into a mathematics lecture, changing his life, and the course of scientific history.
Mathematics seemed so much more interesting than medicine, he thought, and it also seemed to play a crucial
role in understanding and explaining our world.

Galileo had recently become fascinated by the movement of pendulums, noting that if the length of the string
was constant, it didn’t matter how hard you swung it, the pendulum always moved to-and-fro at the same
rate.

The musician in him recognized a principle similar to his lute. It didn’t matter how hard you hit a lute string, it
would always play the same note: but if you changed the length of the string you could you change the
musical note. And likewise a pendulum would change the rate at which it swung to and fro only if you changed
the length of the string.

As an accomplished musician, Galileo knew that the relationship between string length and the note it
produced was mathematical – this had been proved almost 2000 years earlier by the Pythagoreans in Ancient
Greece.

In fact, Galileo’s father had contributed to the field of the mathematics of music by discovering a new
relationship, showing that in a stringed instrument, the pitch of a musical note depends on the square root of
the string’s tension.

And so the die was cast. Galileo realized that he was much more interested in mathematics and physics than
he was in medicine. He chose to follow the path which excited him most intellectually rather than that which
would have rewarded him most financially.
Having strayed from medicine, he then decided that he might as well study art and drawing in addition to
science.

Funnily enough, he never completed his university degree!

Galileo Math Music Physics

Galileo believed that mathematics is the language of the world around us: whether it is the behavior of planets
and pendulums, or the fundamentals of music and mechanics – all could be understood using mathematics.

Galileo’s Scientific Career

At the age of 22, Galileo published a book about a hydrostatic balance he had invented. In this way his name
became known to other scientists.

Despite his scientific progress, Galileo’s first job was as an art teacher. Aged 24, he began teaching art in the
Italian city of Florence. He didn’t stay long in this job; his scientific and mathematical powers had been
noticed, and in 1589, aged just 25, he was awarded the Chair of Mathematics at the University of Pisa.

He worked in Pisa for three years, before moving to the University of Padua in northern Italy in 1592.

Galileo settled in Padua, where he taught mathematics, physics and astronomy, and made many momentous
scientific discoveries.

Galileo’s Scientific Achievements and Discoveries

Galileo:

Was the first person to study the sky with a telescope.

Became a skilled telescope builder and made money selling them to merchants in Venice who were eager to
see which ships were arriving as soon as possible in an effort to make money on the ‘futures’ market.

Discovered the first moons ever known to orbit a planet other than Earth. Jupiter’s four largest moons,
which he discovered: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, are together known as the Galilean Satellites in his
honor.

Discovered that Venus has phases like the moon, ranging from a thin crescent to full. This was the first
practical, observational evidence that the sun sits at the center of the Solar System, orbited by the planets.

Discovered the rings of Saturn, although he found their appearance very confusing.

Discovered our moon has mountains.

Discovered that the Milky Way is made up of stars.

Galileo Milky Way

On a dark, clear night, you can see the Milky Way in the sky. This NASA image contains much more detail than
you could ever see with the naked eye. Galileo discovered that the Milky Way is made up of stars.

Was, we now know from drawings in his notebook, the first person ever to see the planet Neptune. He
observed that, unlike the other stars, it was moving. In Galileo’s time, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn had been known of for thousands of years and no others were contemplated. Galileo lost
track of the moving star he had found. Neptune was not discovered until 1846.

Established that, if there is no air resistance, everything falls to the ground at the same rate regardless of
its weight. Gravity accelerates all objects equally, whatever their mass.

Established that when gravity accelerates any object, the object accelerates at a constant rate so that the
distance fallen is proportional to the time squared. For example, a ball falling for one second would travel a
distance of one unit; a ball falling for two seconds would travel a distance of four units; a ball falling for three
seconds would travel a distance of nine units, etc. It is probably a myth that he discovered this by dropping
cannon balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He used balls rolling down wooden ramps for most of his
investigations of gravity and acceleration.

Identified that anything thrown or fired on Earth, such as a rock or a cannonball, flies along a curved path
and that the shape of the curve is a parabola.

Galileo Pisa Gravity

Galileo investigated the effect of gravity on falling bodies. He found balls fired from cannons followed a path
shaped like a parabola and that all bodies fall to Earth with a constant acceleration.

Stated the principle of inertia: a body moving on a level surface will continue in the same direction at a
constant speed unless disturbed. This later became Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Proposed the first theory of relativity: that the laws of physics are the same for all observers moving in a
straight line at constant speed.

Discovered that for pendulums, their period of oscillation squared is directly proportional to their length and
is independent of the mass attached to the string or rod. Galileo realized pendulums could be used to keep
time, but never seems to have put this into practice, other than showing his son a design for a clock. Clocks
had not been invented in Galileo’s time and his experiments were conducted using his pulse as the
timekeeper, or, better, the weight of water which escaped through a hole in a vessel.

Tried to measure the speed of light, but found it was too fast for him to measure.

Showed that the set of perfect squares 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100… has as many members in it as
the set of whole numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9, 10… even though, at first sight, the set of whole numbers
appears to contain more members. This demonstration became known as Galileo’s Paradox. The basis of
Galileo’s proof is that there must be as many whole numbers squared as there are whole numbers, because
every whole number can be squared – so every whole number can be paired up with its square.

Albert Einstein“Galileo – the father of modern physics – indeed of modern science.”

Albert Einstein

Theoretical Physicist

Galileo’s Trouble with the Church

In Galileo’s time the Church reluctantly tried to accommodate science to some extent. Its attitude was that it
was okay for people to do science, and it was even okay to find that the Church’s interpretation of the Bible
was wrong, as long as you didn’t say it out loud.

For example, it was okay to pretend that the earth orbited the sun to help with astronomical calculations, but
it was not okay to state that it was true that the earth orbited the sun.

Galileo’s troubles began in 1613 when he was 49 years old and published Letters on Sunspots. In this book, he
established the imperfection of the heavens by describing dark patches on the sun’s surface – sunspots. He
also said he preferred the idea that the earth orbited the sun: this was known as the Copernican view after
Nicholas Copernicus published evidence for a heliocentric or sun-centered Solar System in 1543. Aristarchus, in
Ancient Greece, had also proposed this 18 centuries previously. Copernicus’s work was well-known to
scientists, but the Church had never approved the book for general reading.

In 1615 Galileo wrote that the words of the Bible had to be interpreted based on modern science and that the
language of the Bible was the language of an earlier time.

Galileo“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and
intellect has intended us to avoid their use.”

Galileo Galilei

Astronomer, Mathematician, Physicist

In 1616 the Church went further than non-approval of Copernicus’s book, condemning it and banning it.
In 1620 the Church approved Copernicus’s book after editing it: any sentences in which Copernicus wrote
about a heliocentric Solar System as a matter of fact were removed or changed. Despite the final approval, the
book was still not actually published in any countries with a powerful Catholic Church.

In 1632 the Church in Florence, but not Rome, approved for publication Galileo’s new work, Dialogue
Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. In the book he seemed to argue in favor of a heliocentric Solar
System.

In 1633 Galileo answered a summons to Rome to answer charges that the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief
World Systems was heretical. He was interrogated by the Inquisition and threatened with torture.

He denied that his book was heretical and denied that it advocated a heliocentric Solar System. He was
sentenced to life imprisonment on the basis that he was “vehemently suspected of heresy.” This was later
lessened to house arrest, because he was a rather elderly man.

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and all other works by Galileo were prohibited.

However, in countries where the Catholic Church was not strong, such as England, Holland, Germany,
Scotland, Switzerland, and all of Scandinavia, Galileo’s books were available for anyone to read.

House Arrest and Two New Sciences

Galileo was confined to his house near the city of Florence for eight years, during which time he was allowed
to receive visitors. In 1638 he published his masterpiece: Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations
Concerning the Two New Sciences.

The two new sciences he described were the science of materials and the science of motion.

The book was published in Holland after it was smuggled out of Italy. It contained much of what Galileo had
discovered and learned during his many years of experimentation and theorizing.

Stephen HawkingSo great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained
that the book anticipated Isaac Newton’s laws of motion.”

Stephen Hawking

Theoretical Physicist

The End
After eight years of house arrest, Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642, aged 77.

As the years passed, the Catholic Church gradually began removing prohibition orders on some of Galileo’s
books, or allowed edited versions to be published. It took until 1835 until everything Galileo had written was
approved by the Church.

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Isaac Newton is perhaps the greatest physicist who has ever lived. He and Albert Einstein are almost
equally matched contenders for this title.

Each of these great scientists produced dramatic and startling transformations in the physical laws we believe
our universe obeys, changing the way we understand and relate to the world around us.

Early Life and Education

Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 in the tiny village of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire,
England.

His father, whose name was also Isaac Newton, was a farmer who died before Isaac Junior was born.
Although comfortable financially, his father could not read or write.

His mother, Hannah Ayscough, married a churchman when Newton was three years old.

Newton disliked his mother’s new husband and did not join their household, living instead with his mother’s
mother, Margery Ayscough.
His resentment of his mother and stepfather’s new life did not subside with time; as a teenager he threatened
to burn their house down!

Beginning at age 12, Newton attended The King’s School, Grantham, where he was taught the classics, but no
science or mathematics. When he was 17, his mother stopped his schooling so that he could become a farmer.
Fortunately for the future of science Newton found he had neither aptitude nor liking for farming; his mother
allowed him to return to school, where he finished as top student.

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Servant and Undergraduate

In June 1661, aged 18, Newton began studying for a law degree at Cambridge University’s Trinity College,
earning money working as a personal servant to wealthier students.

By the time he was a third-year student he was spending a lot of his time studying mathematics and natural
philosophy (today we call it physics). He was also very interested in alchemy, which we now categorize as a
pseudoscience.

His natural philosophy lecturers based their courses on Aristotle’s incorrect ideas from Ancient Greece. This
was despite the fact that 25 years earlier, in 1638, Galileo Galilei had published his physics masterpiece Two
New Sciences establishing a new scientific basis for the physics of motion.

Newton began to disregard the material taught at his college, preferring to study the recent (and more
scientifically correct) works of Galileo, Boyle, Descartes, and Kepler. He wrote:

Isaac Newton“Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.”

Isaac Newton

Mathematician and Physicist

Reading the works of these great scientists, Newton grew more ambitious about making discoveries himself.
While still working part-time as a servant, he wrote a note to himself. In it he posed questions which had not
yet been answered by science. These included questions about gravity, the nature of light, the nature of color
and vision, and atoms.

After three years at Cambridge he won a four-year scholarship, allowing him to devote his time fully to
academic studies.

A Mind on Fire
In 1665, at the age of 22, a year after beginning his four-year scholarship, he made his first major discovery:
this was in mathematics, where he discovered the generalized binomial theorem. In 1665 he was also awarded
his B.A. degree.

By now Newton’s mind was ablaze with new ideas. He began making significant progress in three distinct
fields – fields in which he would make some of his most profound discoveries:

calculus, the mathematics of change, which is vital to our understanding of the world around us

gravity

optics and the behavior of light

He did much of his work on these topics back home at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth after the Great Plague
forced his college in Cambridge to close.

Fellow and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics

At the age of 24, in 1667, he returned to Cambridge, where events moved quickly.

First he was elected as a fellow of Trinity College.

A year later, in 1668, he was awarded an M.A. degree.

A year after that, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Trinity College, Isaac Barrow, resigned and Newton
was appointed as his replacement; he was just 26 years old. Barrow, who had recommended that Newton
should succeed him, said of Newton’s skills in mathematics:

Isaac Barrow“Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young, being but the second year master of arts;
but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency.”

Isaac Barrow

Mathematician

Isaac Newton’s Scientific Achievements and Discoveries

Achievements in Brief

Isaac Newton, who was largely self-taught in mathematics and physics:

 generalized the binomial theorem

showed that sunlight is made up of all of the colors of the rainbow. He used one glass prism to split a beam
of sunlight into its separate colors, then another prism to recombine the rainbow colors to make a beam of
white light again.

built the world’s first working reflecting telescope.

discovered/invented calculus, the mathematics of change, without which we could not understand the
behavior of objects as tiny as electrons or as large as galaxies.

wrote the Principia, one of the most important scientific books ever written; in it he used mathematics to
explain gravity and motion. (Principia is pronounced with a hard c.)

discovered the law of universal gravitation, proving that the force holding the moon in orbit around the
earth is the same force that causes an apple to fall from a tree.

formulated his three laws of motion – Newton’s Laws – which lie at the heart of the science of movement.

showed that Kepler’s laws of planetary motion are special cases of Newton’s universal gravitation.

proved that all objects moving through space under the influence of gravity must follow a path shaped in
the form of one of the conic sections, such as a circle, an ellipse, or a parabola, hence explaining the paths all
planets and comets follow.

showed that the tides are caused by gravitational interactions between the earth, the moon and the sun.

predicted, correctly, that the earth is not perfectly spherical but is squashed into an oblate spheroid, larger
around the equator than around the poles.

Used mathematics to model the movement of fluids – from which the concept of a Newtonian fluid comes.

devised Newton’s Method for finding the roots of mathematical functions.

Isaac NewtonA cylinder of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere is of equal weight with a cylinder of water
about 33 feet high.

Isaac Newton

Some Details about Newton’s Greatest Discoveries

Newton revealed his laws of motion and gravitation in his book the Principia. Just as few people at first could
understand Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, few people understood the Principia when it was
published. When Newton walked past them one day, one student remarked to another:

“There goes a man who has written a book that neither he nor anybody else understands.”
Newton’s ideas were spread by the small number of people who understood the Principia, and who were able
to convey its message in more accessible ways: people including Leonard Euler, Joseph Louis Lagrange, Pierre
Simon de Laplace, Willem Jacob ‘s Gravesande, William Whiston, Voltaire, John Theophilus Desaguliers, and
David Gregory.

Calculus

Newton was the first person to fully develop calculus. Calculus is the mathematics of change. Modern physics
and physical chemistry would be impossible without it. Other academic disciplines such as biology and
economics also rely heavily on calculus for analysis.

In his development of calculus Newton was influenced by Pierre de Fermat, who had shown specific examples
in which calculus-like methods could be used. Newton was able to build on Fermat’s work and generalize
calculus. Newton wrote that he had been guided by:

Isaac Newton“Monsieur Fermat’s method of drawing tangents.”

Isaac Newton

Mathematician and Physicist

From Newton’s fertile mind came the ideas that we now call differential calculus, integral calculus and
differential equations.

Soon after Newton generalized calculus, Gottfried Leibniz achieved the same result. Today, most
mathematicians give equal credit to Newton and Leibniz for calculus’s discovery.

Universal Gravitation and the Apple

Newton and his apple Newton’s famous apple, which he saw falling from a tree in the garden of his family
home in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, is not a myth.

He told people that seeing the apple’s fall made him wonder why it fell in a straight line towards the center of
our planet rather than moving upwards or sideways.

Ultimately, he realized and proved that the force behind the apple’s fall also causes the moon to orbit the
earth; and comets, the earth and other planets to orbit the sun. The force is felt throughout the universe, so
Newton called it Universal Gravitation. In a nutshell, it says that mass attracts mass.

Newton discovered the equation that allows us to calculate the force of gravity between two objects.
Most people don’t like equations much: E = mc2 is as much as they can stand, but, for the record, here’s
Newton’s equation:

newton gravity equation

Newton’s equation says that you can calculate the gravitational force attracting one object to another by
multiplying the masses of the two objects by the gravitational constant and dividing by the square of the
distance between the objects.

Dividing by distance squared means Newton’s Law is an inverse-square law.

Newton proved mathematically that any object moving in space affected by an inverse-square law will follow a
path in the shape of one of the conic sections, the shapes which fascinated Archimedes and other Ancient
Greek mathematicians.

For example, planets follow elliptical paths; while comets follow elliptical, or parabolic or hyperbolic paths.

And that’s it!

Newton showed everyone how to calculate the force of gravity between things such as people, planets, stars
and apples.

Newton’s Laws of Motion

Action Reaction

Third Law: The rocket flies because of the upward thrust it gets in reaction to the high speed gas particles
pushing downward from its engines.

Newton’s three laws of motion still lie at the heart of mechanics.

First law: Objects remain stationary or move at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force.
This law was actually first stated by Galileo, whose influence Newton mentions several times in the Principia.

Second law: The force F on an object is equal to its mass m multiplied by its acceleration: F = ma.
Third law: When one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object exerts a force equal in size
and opposite in direction on the first object.

With Newton’s calculus, universal gravitation, and laws of motion, you have enough knowledge at your
fingertips to plot a course for a spaceship to any planet in our solar system or even another solar system!

And Isaac Newton figured it all out about 300 years before we actually did send a spaceship to the planets.

A Word of Caution

Newton’s laws become increasingly inaccurate when speeds reach substantial fractions of the speed of light, or
when the force of gravity is very large. Einstein’s equations are then required to produce reliable results.

Optics and Light

Newton was not just clever with his mind. He was also skilled in experimental methods and working with
equipment.

He built the world’s first reflecting telescope. This telescope focuses light from a curved mirror. Reflecting
telescopes have several advantages over earlier telescopes including:

they are cheaper to make

they are easier to make in large sizes, gathering more light, allowing higher magnification

they do not suffer from a focusing issue associated with lenses called chromatic aberration.

Newton also used glass prisms to establish that white light is not a simple phenomenon. He proved that it is
made up of all of the colors of the rainbow, which could recombine to form white light again.

Newton's two prism experiment.

Newton’s crucial 1672 experiment with two prisms. The result absolutely demolished competing theories, such
as the proposal that glass added the colors to sunlight.

Alchemy, Feuds, Religion, and Planets Orbiting Distant Stars

Although he is one of the greatest scientists in history, Newton’s laboratory papers show that he probably
devoted more of his time to alchemy than to anything we would recognize as science.

The Alchemist
The Alchemist by Joseph Wright depicts Hennig Brand’s discovery of phosphorus. Brand was actually trying to
discover the Philosophers’ Stone. Newton seems to have put more of his hours into alchemy than mathematics
and physics.

Not surprisingly, Newton never found the Philosophers’ Stone. Given his towering contributions to real science,
all we can do is wonder what else he might have achieved if he had not been such a passionate alchemist.

Despite his brilliance, Newton was a very insecure man: most historians trace this back to his childhood family
difficulties.

Newton published very little work until his later years, because in his early years as a scientist, Robert Hooke
had disagreed strongly with a scientific paper Newton had published. Newton took criticism of his work in a
very personal way and developed a lifelong loathing for Hooke.

His lack of published work also caused a huge issue when Gottfried Leibniz starting publishing his own version
of calculus. Newton was already a master of this branch of mathematics, but had published very little of it.
Again Newton’s insecurity got the better of him, and he angrily accused Leibniz of stealing his work. The pros
and cons of each man’s case have long been debated by historians. Most mathematicians regard Newton and
Leibniz as equally responsible for the development of calculus.

Newton was a very religious man with somewhat unorthodox Protestant Christian views. He spent a great deal
of time and wrote a large body of private works concerned with theology and his interpretation of the Bible.

His scientific work had revealed a universe that obeyed logical mathematical laws. He had also discovered that
starlight and sunlight are the same, and he speculated that stars could have their own systems of planets
orbiting them. He believed such a system could only have been made by God.

Isaac NewtonThis most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel
and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centers of other like systems,
these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the
light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun.

Isaac Newton

Moving On

In 1696, Newton was appointed as a Warden of the Royal Mint. In 1700, he became Master of the Mint,
leaving Cambridge for London, and more or less ending his scientific discovery work. He took his new role very
seriously, going out into London’s taverns in disguise gathering evidence against counterfeiters.
In 1703, he was elected President of the Royal Society.

In 1705, he was knighted, becoming Sir Isaac Newton.

Albert Einstein“Nature to Newton was an open book, whose letters he could read without effort.”

Albert Einstein

Theoretical Physicist

The End

Isaac Newton died on March 31, 1727, aged 84. He had never married and had no children.

He was buried in Westminster Abbey, London.

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Albert Einstein rewrote the laws of nature. He completely changed the way we understand the
behavior of things as basic as light, gravity, and time.

Although scientists today are comfortable with Einstein’s ideas, in his time, they were completely revolutionary.
Most people did not even begin to understand them.

If you’re new to science, you’ll probably find that some of his ideas take time to get used to!

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Quick Guide to Albert Einstein’s Scientific Achievements

Albert Einstein:

• provided powerful confirmation that atoms and molecules actually exist, through his analysis of Brownian
motion.

• demonstrated the photoelectric effect, establishing that light can behave as both a wave and a particle. Light
particles (he called them quanta) with the correct amount of energy can eject electrons from metals.

• proved that everyone, whatever speed we move at, measures the speed of light to be 300 million meters per
second in a vacuum. This led to the strange new reality that time passes more slowly for people traveling at
very high speeds compared with people moving more slowly.

• discovered the hugely important and iconic equation, E = mc2, which showed that energy and matter can be
converted into one another.

• rewrote the law of gravitation, which had been unchallenged since Isaac Newton published it in 1687. In his
General Theory of Relativity, Einstein:

» showed that matter causes space to curve, which produces gravity.

» showed that the path of light follows the gravitational curve of space.

» showed that time passes more slowly when gravity becomes very strong.

• became the 20th century’s most famous scientist when the strange predictions he made in his General
Theory of Relativity were verified by scientific observations.

• spent his later years trying to find equations to unite quantum physics with general relativity. This was an
incredibly hard task for him to set himself. To date, it has still not been achieved.

His Beginnings

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. He was not talkative in his childhood, and until
the age of three, he didn’t talk much. He spent his teenage years in Munich, where his family had an electric
equipment business. As a teenager, he was interested in nature and showed a high level of ability in
mathematics and physics.
Einstein loved to be creative and innovative. He loathed the uncreative spirit in his school at Munich. His
family’s business failed when he was aged 15, and they moved to Milan, Italy. Aged 16, he moved to
Switzerland, where he finished high school.

In 1896 he began to study for a degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He didn’t like
the teaching methods there, so he bunked classes to carry out experiments in the physics laboratory or play
his violin. With the help of his classmate’s notes, he passed his exams; he graduated in 1900.

Einstein was not considered a good student by his teachers, and they refused to recommend him for further
employment.

Einstein 1903

Einstein 1903

While studying at the Polytechnic, Einstein had learned about one of the biggest problems then baffling
physicists. This was how to marry together Isaac Newton’s laws of motion with James Clerk Maxwell’s
equations of electromagnetism.

In 1902 he obtained the post of an examiner in the Swiss Federal patent office, and, in 1903, he wedded his
classmate Mileva Maric. He had two sons with her but they later divorced. After some years Einstein married
Elsa Loewenthal.

Early Scientific Publications

Einstein continued to work in the patent office, during which time he made most of his greatest scientific
breakthroughs. The University of Zurich awarded him a Ph.D. in 1905 for his thesis “A New Determination of
Molecular Dimensions.”

1905: The Year of Miracles

In 1905, the same year as he submitted his doctoral thesis, Albert Einstein published four immensely
important scientific papers dealing with his analysis of:

Brownian motion

the equivalence of mass and energy

the photoelectric effect

special relativity
Each of these papers on their own was a huge contribution to science. To publish four such papers in one year
was considered to be almost miraculous. Einstein was just 26 years old.

Mass Energy Equivalence

Einstein gave birth in 1905 to what has become the world’s most famous equation:

E = mc2

The equation says that mass (m) can be converted to energy (E). A little mass can make a lot of energy,
because mass is multiplied by c2 where c is the speed of light, a very large number.

mass energy equivalence

A small amount of mass can make a large amount of energy. Conversion of mass in atomic nuclei to energy is
the principle behind nuclear weapons and explains the sun’s source of energy.

The Photoelectric Effect

If you shine light on metal, the metal may release some of its electrons. Einstein said that light is made up of
individual ‘particles’ of energy, which he called quanta. When these quanta hit the metal, they give their
energy to electrons, giving the electrons enough energy to escape from the metal.

Einstein showed that light can behave as a particle as well as a wave. The energy each ‘particle’ of light carries
is proportional to the frequency of the light waves.

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity

In Einstein’s third paper of 1905 he returned to the big problem he had heard about at university – how to
resolve Newton’s laws of motion with Maxwell’s equations of light. His approach was the ‘thought experiment.’
He imagined how the world would look if he could travel at the speed of light.

He realized that the laws of physics are the same everywhere, and regardless of what you did – whether you
moved quickly toward a ray of light as it approached you, or quickly away from the ray of light – you would
always see the light ray to be moving at the same speed – the speed of light!

This is not obvious, because it’s not how things work in everyday life, where, for example, if you move
towards a child approaching you on a bike he will reach you sooner than if you move away from him. With
light, it doesn’t matter whether you move towards or away from the light, it will take the same amount of time
to reach you. This isn’t an easy thing to understand, so don’t worry about it if you don’t! (Unless you’re at
university studying physics.) Every experiment ever done to test special relativity has confirmed what Einstein
said.
If the speed of light is the same for all observers regardless of their speed, then it follows that some other
strange things must be true. In fact, it turns out that time, length, and mass actually depend on the speed we
are moving at. The nearer the speed of light we move, the bigger differences we seen in these quantities
compared with someone moving more slowly. For example, time passes more and more slowly as we move
faster and faster.

Einstein Becomes Known to the Wider Physics Community

As people read Einstein’s papers and argued about their significance, his work gradually gained acceptance,
and his reputation as a powerful new intellect in the world of physics grew. In 1908 he began lecturing at the
University of Bern, and the following year resigned from the Patent Office. In 1911 he became a professor of
physics at the Karl-Ferdinand University in Prague, before returning to Zurich in 1912 to a professorship there.

Working on the general theory of relativity, in 1911 he made his first predictions of how our sun’s powerful
gravity would bend the path of light coming from other stars as it traveled past the sun.

The General Theory of Relativity – Einstein Becomes Famous Worldwide

mass curves space, resulting in gravity

A very, very rough approximation: the earth’s mass curves space. The moon’s speed keeps it rolling around
the curve rather than falling to Earth. If you are on Earth and wish to leave, you need to climb out of the
gravity well

Einstein published his general theory of relativity paper in 1915, showing, for example, how gravity distorts
space and time. Light is deflected by powerful gravity, not because of its mass (light has no mass) but
because gravity has curved the space that light travels through.

In 1919 a British expedition traveled to the West African island of Principe to observe an eclipse of the sun.
During the eclipse they could test whether light from far away stars passing close to the sun was deflected.
They found that it was! Just as Einstein had said, space truly was curved.

On November 7, 1919, the London Times’ headline read:

Revolution in science – New theory of the Universe – Newtonian ideas overthrown.

Honors and More Honors

Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. People are sometimes surprised to learn that
the award was not made for his work in special or general relativity, but for his overall services to theoretical
physics and one of the works from his miracle year specifically – the discovery of the law of the photoelectric
effect in 1905.

The Royal Society of London awarded him its prestigious Copely Medal in 1925 for his theory of relativity and
contributions to the quantum theory. The Franklin Institute awarded him with the Franklin medal in 1935 for
his work on relativity and the photo-electric effect.

Universities around the world competed with one another to award him honorary doctorates, and the press
wrote more about him than any other scientist – Einstein became a celebrity.

Einstein’s Later Years

Einstein made his greatest discoveries when he was a relatively young man.

In his later years he continued with science, but made no further groundbreaking discoveries. He became
interested in politics and the state of the world.

Einstein had been born German and a Jew. He died an American citizen in 1955. Einstein was in America when
Hitler came to power. He decided it would be a bad idea to return to Germany, and renounced his German
citizenship. Einstein did not practice Judaism, but strongly identified with the Jewish people persecuted by the
Nazi Party, favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine with the rights of Arabs protected.

It was Einstein’s wish that people should be respected for their humanity and not for their country of origin or
religion. Expressing his cynicism for nationalistic pride, he once said:

“If relativity is proved right the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the
French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me Swiss, the Swiss will
call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.”

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Michael Faraday, who came from a very poor family, became one of the greatest scientists in
history. His achievement was remarkable in a time when science was the preserve of people born into
privileged families. The unit of electrical capacitance is named the farad in his honor, with the symbol F.

Education and Early Life

Michael Faraday was born on September 22, 1791 in London, England, UK. He was the third child of James
and Margaret Faraday. His father was a blacksmith who had poor health. Before marriage, his mother had
been a servant. The family lived in a degree of poverty.

Michael Faraday attended a local school until he was 13, where he received a basic education. To earn money
for the family he started working as a delivery boy for a bookshop. He worked hard and impressed his
employer. After a year, he was promoted to become an apprentice bookbinder.

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Bookbinding and Discovering Science

Michael Faraday was eager to learn more about the world; he did not restrict himself to binding the shop’s
books. After working hard each day, he spent his free time reading the books he had bound.

Gradually, he found he was reading more and more about science. Two books in particular captivated him:

The Encyclopedia Britannica – his source for electrical knowledge and much more

Conversations on Chemistry – 600 pages of chemistry for ordinary people written by Jane Marcet

He became so fascinated that he started spending part of his meager pay on chemicals and apparatus to
confirm the truth of what he was reading.

As he learned more about science, he heard that the well-known scientist John Tatum was going to give a
series of public lectures on natural philosophy (physics). To attend the lectures the fee would be one shilling –
too much for Michael Faraday. His older brother, a blacksmith, impressed by his brother’s growing devotion to
science, gave him the shilling he needed.

It is worth saying that the parallels in the lives of Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry are rather striking. Both
were born in poverty; had fathers who often could not work because of ill-health; became apprentices; were
inspired to become scientists by reading particular books; were devoutly religious; became laboratory
assistants; their greatest contributions were made in the same scientific era in the field of electrical science;
and both have an SI unit named in their honor.

Introduction to Humphry Davy and More Science

Faraday’s education took another step upward when William Dance, a customer of the bookshop, asked if he
would like tickets to hear Sir Humphry Davy lecturing at the Royal Institution.

Sir Humphry Davy was one of the most famous scientists in the world. Faraday jumped at the chance and
attended four lectures about one of the newest problems in chemistry – defining acidity. He watched Davy
perform experiments at the lectures.

This was the world he wanted to live in, he told himself. He took notes and then made so many additions to
the notes that he produced a 300 page handwritten book, which he bound and sent to Davy as a tribute.

Humphry Davy Royal Institution

An 1802 drawing by James Gillray of another exciting science lecture at the Royal Institution! Humphry Davy is
the dark-haired man holding the gas bag.

At this time Faraday had begun more sophisticated experiments at the back of the bookshop, building an
electric battery using copper coins and zinc discs separated by moist, salty paper. He used his battery to
decompose chemicals such as magnesium sulfate. This was the type of chemistry Humphry Davy had
pioneered.

In October 1812 Faraday’s apprenticeship ended, and he began work as a bookbinder with a new employer,
whom he found unpleasant.

Others’ Misfortunes Help Faraday

And then there was a fortunate (for Faraday) accident. Sir Humphry Davy was hurt in an explosion when an
experiment went wrong: this temporarily affected his ability to write. Faraday managed to get work for a few
days taking notes for Davy, who had been impressed by the book Faraday had sent him. There were some
advantages to being a bookbinder after all!

When his short time as Davy’s note-taker ended, Faraday sent a note to Davy, asking if he might be employed
as his assistant. Soon after this, one of Davy’s laboratory assistants was fired for misconduct, and Davy sent a
message to Faraday asking him if he would like the job of chemical assistant.

Would he like the job? Working in the Royal Institution, with one of the most famous scientists in the world?
There could only be one answer!
Michael Faraday’s Career at the Royal Institution

Faraday began work at the Royal Institution of Great Britain at the age of 21 on March 1, 1813.

His salary was good, and he was given a room in the Royal Institution’s attic to live in. He was very happy with
the way things had turned out.

He was destined to be associated with the Royal Institution for 54 years, ending up as a Professor of
Chemistry.

Faraday’s job as a chemical assistant was to prepare apparatus for the experiments and the lectures at the
Royal Institution.

At first, this involved working with nitrogen trichloride, the explosive which had already injured Davy. Faraday
himself was knocked unconscious briefly by another nitrogen chloride explosion, and then Davy was injured
again, finally (thankfully) putting to an end to work with that particular substance.

After just seven months at the Royal Institution, Davy took Faraday as his secretary on a tour of Europe that
lasted 18 months.

Alessandro Volta

Faraday met many of Europe’s greatest scientists, including Alessandro Volta, pictured above.

During this time Faraday met great scientists such as André-Marie Ampère in Paris and Alessandro Volta in
Milan. In some ways, the tour acted like a university education, and Faraday learned a lot from it.

He was, however, unhappy for much of the tour, because in addition to his scientific and secretarial work, he
was required to be a personal servant to Davy and Davy’s wife, which he did not enjoy. Davy’s wife refused to
treat Faraday as an equal, because he had come from a lower class family.

Back in London, though, things began to look better again. The Royal Institution renewed Faraday’s contract
and increased his salary. Davy even began to acknowledge him in academic papers:

“Indebted to Mr. Michael Faraday for much able assistance.”

In 1816, aged 24, Faraday gave his first ever lecture, on the properties of matter, to the City Philosophical
Society. And he published his first ever academic paper, discussing his analysis of calcium hydroxide, in the
Quarterly Journal of Science.

In 1821, aged 29, he was promoted to be Superintendent of House and Laboratory of the Royal Institution. He
also married Sarah Barnard. He and his bride lived in rooms in the Royal Institution for most of the next 46
years: no longer in attic rooms; they now lived in a comfortable suite Humphry Davy himself had once lived in.

In 1824, aged 32, he was elected to the Royal Society. This was recognition that he had become a notable
scientist in his own right.

In 1825, aged 33, he became Director of the Royal Institution’s Laboratory.

In 1833, aged 41, he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He held
this position for the rest of his life.

In 1848, aged 54, and again in 1858 he was offered the Presidency of the Royal Society, but he turned it
down.

Michael Faraday’s Scientific Achievements and Discoveries

It would be easy fill a book with details of all of Faraday’s discoveries – in both chemistry and physics. It is not
an accident that Albert Einstein used to keep photos of three scientists in his office: Isaac Newton, James
Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday.

Funnily enough, although in Faraday’s lifetime people had started to use the word physicist, Faraday disliked
the word and always described himself as a philosopher.

He was a man devoted to discovery through experimentation, and he was famous for never giving up on ideas
which came from his scientific intuition.

If he thought an idea was a good one, he would keep experimenting through multiple failures until he got
what he expected; or until he finally decided that mother nature had shown his intuition to be wrong – but in
Faraday’s case, this was rare.

Here are some of his most notable discoveries:

1821: Discovery of Electromagnetic Rotation

This is a glimpse of what would eventually develop into the electric motor, based on Hans Christian Oersted’s
discovery that a wire carrying electric current has magnetic properties.

michael-faraday-electromagnetic-rotations

Faraday’s electromagnetic rotation apparatus. Electricity flows through the wires. The liquid in the cups is
mercury, a good conductor of electricity. In the cup on the right, the metal wire continuously rotates around
the central magnet as long as electric current is flowing through the circuit.

1823: Gas Liquefaction and Refrigeration

In 1802 John Dalton had stated his belief that all gases could be liquified by the use of low temperatures
and/or high pressures. Faraday provided hard evidence for Dalton’s belief by applying pressure to liquefy
chlorine gas and ammonia gas for the first time.

refrigerator

Showing that ammonia could be liquefied under pressure, then evaporated to cause cooling, led to commercial
refrigeration.

The ammonia liquefaction was of further interest, because Faraday observed that when he allowed the
ammonia to evaporate again, it caused cooling.

The principle of cooling by artificial evaporation had been demonstrated publicly by William Cullen in
Edinburgh in 1756. Cullen had used a pump to reduce the pressure above a flask of ether, causing the ether
to evaporate quickly. The evaporation caused cooling, and ice formed on the outside of the flask as moisture
from the air came into contact with it.

The importance of Faraday’s discovery was that he had shown that mechanical pumps could transform a gas
at room temperature into a liquid. The liquid could then be evaporated, cooling its surroundings and the
resulting gas could be collected and compressed by a pump into a liquid again, then the whole cycle could be
repeated. This is the basis of how modern refrigerators and freezers work.

In 1862 Ferdinand Carré demonstrated the world’s first commercial ice-making machine at the Universal
London Exhibition. The machine used ammonia as its coolant and produced ice at the rate of 200 kg per hour.

1825: Discovery of Benzene

Historically, benzene is one of the most important substances in chemistry, both in a practical sense – i.e.
making new materials; and in a theoretical sense – i.e. understanding chemical bonding. Michael Faraday
discovered benzene in the oily residue left behind from producing gas for lighting in London.

benzene
A model of a benzene molecule.

1831: Discovery of Electromagnetic Induction

This was an enormously important discovery for the future of both science and technology. Faraday discovered
that a varying magnetic field causes electricity to flow in an electric circuit.

electromagentic-induction-horseshoe

Moving the magnet causes a current to flow. You need a sensitive ammeter to observe the tiny current caused
by a small magnet. The stronger the magnet, the bigger the current. Pushing a bar magnet into a coil of wire
can generate a larger current.

For example, moving a horseshoe magnet over a wire produces an electric current, because the movement of
the magnet causes a varying magnetic field.

Previously, people had only been able to produce electric current with a battery. Now Faraday had shown that
movement could be turned into electricity – or in more scientific language, kinetic energy could be converted
to electrical energy.

Most of the power in our homes today is produced using this principle. Rotation (kinetic energy) is converted
into electricity using electromagnetic induction. The rotation can be produced by high pressure steam from
coal, gas, or nuclear energy turning turbines; or by hydroelectric plants; or by wind-turbines, for example.

1834: Faraday’s Laws of Electrolysis

Faraday was one of the major players in the founding of the new science of electrochemistry. This is the
science of understanding what happens at the interface of an electrode with an ionic substance.
Electrochemistry is the science that has produced the Li ion batteries and metal hydride batteries capable of
powering modern mobile technology. Faraday’s laws are vital to our understanding of electrode reactions.

1836: Invention of the Faraday Cage

Faraday discovered that when an electrical conductor becomes charged, all of the extra charge sits on the
outside of the conductor. This means that the extra charge does not appear on the inside of a room or cage
made of metal.

The image at the top of this page has a man wearing a Faraday Suit – which has a metallic lining – keeping
him safe from the electricity outside his suit.
In addition to offering protection for people, sensitive electrical or electrochemical experiments can be placed
inside a Faraday Cage to prevent interference from external electrical activity.

Faraday cages can also create dead zones for mobile communications.

Here a car's metal body is acting as a Faraday Cage, protecting the occupants from the electric discharge.

Here a car’s metal body is acting as a Faraday Cage, protecting the occupants from the electric discharge.

1845: Discovery of the Faraday Effect – a magneto-optical effect

This was another vital experiment in the history of science, the first to link electromagnetism and light – a link
finally described fully by James Clerk Maxwell’s equations in 1864, which established that light is an
electromagnetic wave.

Faraday discovered that a magnetic field causes the plane of light polarization to rotate.

Michael Faraday… when the contrary magnetic poles were on the same side, there was an effect produced on
the polarized ray, and thus magnetic force and light were proved to have relation to each other…

Michael Faraday, 1791 – 1867

James Clerk MaxwellFaraday is, and must always remain, the father of that enlarged science of
electromagnetism.

James Clerk Maxwell, 1831 – 1879

1845: Discovery of Diamagnetism as a Property of all Matter

Most people are familiar with ferromagnetism – the type shown by normal magnets.

levitating-frog

The frog is slightly diamagnetic. The diamagnetism opposes a magnetic field – in this case a very strong
magnetic field – and the frog floats because of magnetic repulsion. Image by Lijnis Nelemans, High Field
Magnet Laboratory, Radboud University Nijmegen.

Faraday discovered that all substances are diamagnetic – most are weakly so – some are strongly so.
Diamagnetism opposes the direction of an applied magnetic field.

For example, if you held the north pole of a magnet near a strongly diamagnetic substance, this substance
would be pushed away by the magnet.

Diamagnetism in materials, induced by very strong modern magnets, can be used to produce levitation. Even
living things, such as frogs, are diamagnetic – and can be levitated in a strong magnetic field.

The End

Michael Faraday died in London, aged 75, on August 25, 1867. He was survived by his wife Sarah. They had
no children. He had been a devout Christian all of his life, belonging to a small branch of the religion called
Sandemanians.

During his life, he had been offered burial in Westminster Abbey along with Britain’s kings and queens and
scientists of the stature of Isaac Newton. He turned this down, in favor of a more modest end. His grave,
where Sarah is also buried, can still be seen in London’s Highgate Cemetery.

Michael FaradayNature is our kindest friend and best critic in experimental science if we only allow her
intimations to fall unbiased on our minds.

Michael Faraday, 1791 – 1867

Ernest RutherfordThe more we study the work of Faraday with the perspective of time, the more we are
impressed by his unrivalled genius as an experimenter and natural philosopher. When we consider the
magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and industry, there is
no honour too great to pay to the memory of Michael Faraday – one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all
time.

Ernest Rutherford, 1931

Pieter Zeeman…recalling the two titles of Faraday’s basic work: “Magnetization of light”, “Illumination of lines
of force.”

They appear to us to be almost prophesies, because we have now seen that light can in fact be magnetized,
and… in nature itself, in the northern lights, an example of illumination of the magnetic lines of force of the
Earth by the electrons escaping from the sun.

Pieter Zeeman, 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics

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