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)

9781108053594, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 October 2012

606 pages, 74 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.4 cm, 0.76 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 3, first published in 1855, includes his landmark paper on the effect of magnetism on light (known now as the Faraday Effect), work on the chemical implications of magnetism, and a fascinating speculation on a link between electricity and gravity.

19. On the magnetization of light and the illumination of magnetic lines of force
20. On new magnetic actions, and on the magnetic condition of all matter
21. Action of magnets on the magnetic metals and their compounds
22. On the crystalline polarity of bismuth
23. On the polar or other condition of diamagnetic bodies
24. On the possible relation of gravity to electricity
25. On the magnetic and diamagnetic condition of bodies
26. Magnetic conduction power
27. Experimental enquiry into the laws of atmospheric magnetic action
28. On lines of magnetic force
29. On the employment of the induced magneto-electric current as a test and measure of magnetic forces.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]