"Experimental Research" by Michael Faraday

Faraday works feverishly, experiments follow one and the other. He does not lose hope that he "will manage to build a new electric car." October 28 can be considered the birthday of the prototype of a modern dynamo. On this day, Faraday installed a rotating copper disk between the poles of the horseshoe magnet, from which electric voltage could be removed with the help of sliding contacts. I earned the world's first generator. Describing this experience, Faraday first mentions his famous "lines of magnetic forces." Contemporaries knowingly called him "the lord of lightning." Electromagnetic experiments, set by him, are the key to the subsequent development of the "electric ocean" by mankind.

The results of all experiments on electromagnetism Faraday reduced to one article and on November 24 reported to the meeting of members of the Royal Society the main provisions of this article. Five days after the report, Michael Faraday reports to the editor of the scientific journal of the Royal Society, Richard Philipps, about the intention to publish systematically studies under the general heading "Experimental research on electricity." The first article (called "series" by the author) is dated November 24, 1831. It was opened by the section "On induction of electric currents".

As a result of the discovery, it was possible to create a device that generates electric current continuously. The basis of such a device is a wire rotating in the field of a permanent magnet. All our modern power plants, whether they work on coal, oil, or at the expense of water energy, produce electricity by the same principle. ... And this time there were contenders for a new great discovery. In the second volume of "Experimental Research" Faraday publishes materials on electromagnetic induction, protecting his priority in this discovery. In total from 1831 to 1838 Faraday published in the magazine 14 series. It is impossible to list the contents of all these series. From the discovery of electromagnetic induction and conjecture about the existence of electromagnetic waves, Faraday proceeds to establish the identity of various types of electricity, to the laws of electrolysis, to the study of self-inductance.

In March 1839, Faraday decided the series, which appeared "during the last seven years", to compile into one volume. He wanted "to present an opportunity to acquire for a reasonable price a complete collection of these reports, furnished with a pointer, to the one who would wish to have them." Faraday did not change anything, he wanted to give "correct reproduction or a report on the progress and results of the whole study."

From 1831 to 1855, Faraday published 30 series of "Experimental Studies". At first they were published in the journal of the Royal Society. Then these "series" were included in three volumes of "Experimental Studies", published in London in 1839, 1844, 1855. Thus, the gigantic work was completed. Three thousand-odd paragraphs, comprising three volumes of the "Investigations", step by step reveal the essence of electromagnetic phenomena. This work caused a just admiration of contemporaries.

Not understanding the full depth of Faraday's ideas, they nevertheless called him "the king of physicists". Faraday enjoyed enormous and deserved popularity in many countries of the world. During his life he received almost one hundred different degrees, honorary diplomas, distinctions, was elected to the membership of 72 scientific societies in different countries of the world, but until the end of his days he remained a modest toiler of science.

The appearance of Faraday-man helps us to restore the memories of the French academician Dumas. He writes: "Faraday was of medium height, alive, cheerful, the eyes are always ready, the movements are fast and confident, the agility in the art of experimentation is incredible." Precise, accurate, whole-devotion to duty ... He lived in his laboratory, among his instruments: he Went to her in the morning and left in the evening with the accuracy of a merchant who spends his day in his office. "

All his life, continues Dumas, Faraday devoted more and more new experiments, finding, in most cases, that it is easier to get people to speak the nature than to solve it ... Faraday did not like secular society, but the theater attracted him and brought him into a fevered intoxication. The sunset in the village, the storm on the seashore, the alpine fogs aroused lively feelings in it; He understood them as an artist, was excited as a poet or analyzed them as a scientist. A look, a word, a gesture - all gave out in such cases a close connection of his soul with the soul of nature. "He loved Faraday and literature, he read aloud Shakespeare and Byron aloud, corresponded with Dickens, from which we learn how highly the scientist valued his novels This was Faraday, who paved the way for mankind to master power and magnetism, the author of the famous "Experimental Research on Electricity."

Michael Faraday walked on an unpaved road ... "We must never forget," wrote J. Tyndall, "that Faraday worked on the outskirts of our knowledge and that his mind was occupied in the region of boundless darkness that surrounded our science." There is no terminology, there is no Ohm's law, there are no electrical engineering units. Moreover, there are almost no electrical appliances, there is not even a wire with insulation. The presence of current in the circuit is detected by heating a thin wire, sparking and even ... taste. Therefore, as Helmholtz remarked wittily, a little wire, a few old pieces of wood and iron gave Faraday the opportunity to make the greatest discoveries. None of the three volumes contains terms such as current strength, resistance, electromotive force ...

Sometimes the description of the most amazing experiments in Faraday is overflowed with enumeration of the number of batteries, their size, the composition of the liquid in them, the dimensions and materials of the wires. The style of descriptions is heavy. The difficulties of understanding were aggravated by the fact that Faraday did not use mathematics at all. In his "Studies" there is not a single formula. Faraday was helped by another scientist, Maxwell , to "understand".

... The third volume of "Experimental Research" was still in the printing house when D. Maxwell , a bachelor of Cambridge, decided to study electricity (1854). He began by reading the works of Faraday. Soon - in 1856 - appeared and his first work "On Faraday's lines of force," in which Maxwell tried to "represent Faraday's theory of electricity in mathematical form." He wrote: "As I moved forward in the study of Faraday, I became convinced that his way of understanding phenomena is also of a mathematical nature, although he does not appear to us clothed in the clothes of conventional mathematical symbols." I saw that these ideas can be expressed by ordinary Mathematical formulas and thus compare them with the ideas of professional mathematicians. " This was the first step of a young scientist in developing and popularizing Faraday's work. Years passed before Maxwell published his main work "Treatise on electricity and magnetism."

Maxwell himself wrote in the preface: "If any of the things I write here I will do to any student of understanding in understanding Faraday's ways of thinking and expression, I will consider that one of my main goals, namely, to convey to others the admiration I experienced myself , Reading "Studies" Faraday, will be performed. " However, the meaning of the "Tractatus" is not limited to this.

Maxwell created a harmonious theory of electromagnetic phenomena, encompassing the totality of facts known at the time and predicting new discoveries. The main provisions of this theory reveal the interconnection of electric charges with electric and magnetic fields. The most striking thing about Maxwell's theory was that the finite velocity of propagation of electric and magnetic fields ensued from it. Maxwell predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves, he concluded that light waves are electromagnetic in nature! And this doctrine was met with disbelief.

Maxwell did not live to confirm his remarkable discoveries. A few years after his death, Helmholtz asked his pupil Heinrich Hertz to check Maxwell's conclusion. Hertz succeeded in registering the electromagnetic waves predicted by Maxwell with the help of the equipment created by him (1888). Hertz's experiments finally broke the ice of distrust in the theory of Faraday-Maxwell. "Hertz's Waves" were, as it were, the ancestors of the now known radio waves, light waves, X-ray and gamma radiation.

As already mentioned, the first edition of the "Experimental Research" was published in London (1839 -1855 gg.). In 1882 a facsimile edition was made. A few years later, the "Studies" were translated into German completely in Berlin (1889 -1891 gg.) And in Leipzig - in extracts (1896 - 1903 gg.). The first mention of Faraday in the Russian reference literature dates back to 1838. At that time, XIII volume of the "Encyclopedic Lexicon" was published in St. Petersburg, where O. Senkovsky's article "Galvanic Terminology of Faraday (Faraday)" was published. The biography of an outstanding English scientist has been published many times. In 1871, John Tyndall's memoirs "Faraday and his discoveries, with the addition of H. Helmholtz" were translated. In Pavlenko's series "The Life of Remarkable People", L. Abramov's book Faraday, His Life and Scientific Activity (1892) was published.

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Source of information: Glukhov AG Books penetrating the ages. M .: The book, 1975.