More Flux

By Amy Mast

The Magnet Lab's resistive magnets, a type of electromagnet that uses conventional electricity to generate high magnetic fields, owe a debt of innovation to Michael Faraday. While such magnets weren't invented until long after his death, his field of study mined many of the principles and invented some of the techniques that make the lab's research possible.

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature." -Michael Faraday

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Faraday, an Englishman born into a blacksmithing family in 1791, had very little education as we think of it today, and he discovered an interest in science by chance. While an apprentice at a printing press, he began to read the scientific texts that were passing under his hands; he was particularly interested in magnetism and chemistry.

Impressed with 300 pages of notes the 21-year-old Faraday sent him after a lecture, a prominent chemist at The Royal Institution of Great Britain hired Faraday on as a secretary. Faraday went on to hold the senior chemist's post, receiving several important scientific honors and making several discoveries in chemistry.

He's most famous, however, for his investigation into the relationship between magnetism and electricity. Expounding on the ideas of his contemporary Hans Christian Oersted, whose discovery of electromagnetism made waves across Europe, Faraday constructed a simple motor. It became the structural basis for much of today's electromagnetic technology.

A few years later Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, the principle that allowed for the invention of important everyday products such as standard electric motors and power transformers. This discovery led to the construction of a device called the electric dynamo, which was improved upon and refined to become today's power generator.

Since Faraday was self-educated, he never received any training in complex math, though his mastery of the concepts explored was never in doubt. Theorists and mathematicians later outlined more concretely the principles that made his inventions and ideas work.

Faraday died at home in 1867, with countless accumulated honors and the respect of the worldwide scientific community.