Experimental Researches in Electricity

Originally published between 1839 and 1855, this three-volume collection represents a comprehensive record of Michael Faraday's landmark work on electricity.

Michael Faraday (Author)

9781108053587, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 October 2012

320 pages, 10 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.8 cm, 0.41 kg

Originally apprenticed to a bookbinder, Michael Faraday (1791–1867) began to attend Sir Humphrey Davy's chemistry lectures purely out of interest. Although he soon recognised that science would be his vocation, there was no defined career path to follow, and when he applied to Davy for work he was gently told to 'attend to the bookbinding'. It was only after a laboratory explosion in which Davy partially lost his sight that Faraday was taken on as his amanuensis. From this difficult beginning stemmed perhaps the most famous scientific career of the nineteenth century. This three-volume collection of Faraday's papers provides a comprehensive record of a key branch of his work. Volume 2, first published in 1844, includes essays on the illusions caused by lightning, the chemistry of a voltaic pile, and his defence against accusations that the idea behind his electromagnetic motor was stolen from another physicist.

15. On the character and direction of the electric force of the Gymnotus
16. On the source of power in the voltaic pile
17. The exciting chemical force affected by temperature
18. On the electricity evolved by the friction of water and steam against other bodies.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]