Top 10 Interesting Facts about Michael Faraday

Photo by Tom Hall – Wikimedia

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Michael Faraday.

*Originally published by Diana K on March 2022 and Updated by Vanessa R on May 2023

His appetite for experimenting knew no bounds.

Physicist Michael Faraday was born into poverty on September 22, 1791. A self-taught English scientist, Faraday excelled in chemistry and physics to become one of the most influential thinkers in history

Known as the “father of electrical engineering,” he is most famous for his contribution to the field of electromagnetism.

His inventions include the first electric motor and the first electromagnetic generator paving the way for our mechanized age. He also discovered the principles underlying electromagnetic induction and diamagnetism.

You probably know the unit of electrical capacitance is named the farad (symbol F) in his honour. But you may not know everything about Michael Faraday. Go through the top10 interesting facts about Faraday.

1. Michael Faraday was Self Educated.

Photo by Welcome Images – Wikimedia

His father James was a sickly blacksmith who struggled to support his wife and four children in one of London’s poorer outskirts.

Consequently,  was forced to work the family make ends meet at only 13.

A bookseller George Ribeau offered him a free apprenticeship. Over the next seven years, Faraday mastered the trade of bookbinding.

After hours, Faraday remained in Ribeau’s store, reading many of the same volumes he’d bound together.

Like most boys of the lower classes, Faraday’s formal schooling was limited.

Between those bookshelves, however, he taught himself chemistry, physics, and a mysterious force called “electricity.”

2. Math was not Faraday’s Cup of  Tea.

Faraday’s lack of formal education resulted in a sub-par understanding of mathematics, which sometimes hampered his work.

For instance, in 1846, he hypothesized that light itself is an electromagnetic phenomenon but because he couldn’t demonstrate the theory in mathematical form, it was dismissed

It took physicist James Clerk Maxwell to create equations in 1864, which helped prove Faraday’s theory.

However,  Faraday was in no sense a mathematician but almost all his biographers describe him as “mathematically illiterate.

He never learnt any mathematics and his contribution to electricity was purely that of an experimentalist.

3. Michael Faraday Built the First Electric Motor and Generator.

Faraday Disk Generator photo by Daderot – Wikimedia

Faraday built a device that ushered technology into the modern era.

Danish physicist Hans Christian Orsted’s demonstration of when an electric current flows through a wire, a magnetic field is created around it was Faraday’s entry point.

He began experimentation at the Royal Institute. He placed a magnet in the bottom of a mercury-filled glass container. Dangling overhead was a wire, which Faraday connected to a battery.

Once an electric current was conducted through the wire, it began rotating around the magnet.

Faraday had just built the world’s first electric motor. Further, he went ahead and built the world’s first electric generator.

His first experiment comprised a simple ring of wires and cotton through which he passed a magnet. By doing so, he found that a current was generated.

Most electricity is still made using the same principles.

4. Faraday Invented the First Rubber Balloon.

Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash

A balloon is a thin, flexible bag that can be inflated. Commonly made out of rubber latex.

The rubber balloon was invented in 1824 by Professor Michael Faraday, to be used in his hydrogen experiments at the Royal Institution in London.

His balloons were made from pressing two sheets of rubber together were used to contain hydrogen during his experiments.

By today’s balloon standards, his early models look shabby. 

Faraday created them and was quick to praise the bag’s “considerable ascending power.” Toy manufacturers started distributing these the following year.

5.  Michael Faraday Unintentionally Gifted Us the Fridge.

In 1823, Faraday sealed a sample of chlorine hydrate inside a V-shaped tube.

As he heated one end and cooled the other simultaneously, the scientist noticed that a yellow liquid was starting to form.

He broke open the tube, which triggered a violent explosion of glass shards. Faraday, uninjured, detected a strong scent of chlorine in the air.

It didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened. Pressure built up within the tube and liquefied the gas.

Puncturing the glass released the pressure and the liquid reverted into a gas. This sudden evaporation cooled down the surrounding air.

Unintentionally, Faraday had set the stage for the first ice-making machines and refrigeration units.

6. Sir Humphry Davy was  Faraday’s, Mentor Turned Foe.

A portrait of Sir Humphry Davy Photo by Wellcome Images – Wikimedia

Sir Humphry Davy left a huge mark on science. In the year 1808 alone, he discovered no fewer than five elements, including calcium and boron.

Twenty-year-old Faraday attended four of his lectures, as Davy spoke, he took detailed notes which he then compiled and bound into a little book.

Faraday sent his 300-page transcript to Davy. Duly impressed, the seasoned scientist eventually hired him as a lab assistant.

 Later in life, Davy was asked to name the greatest discovery he’d ever made. His answer: “Michael Faraday.”

Tension would nevertheless erupt between mentor and protégé. As Faraday’s accomplishments began to eclipse his own, Davy accused the younger man of plagiarizing another scientist’s work and tried to block his admission to the Royal Society.

7. Michael Faraday Spearheaded the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures.

Faraday understood the importance of making science accessible to the public.

 In 1825, while employed by the Royal Institution, he spearheaded an annual series that’s still going strong.

 That holiday season, engineer John Millington delivered a set of lay-friendly lectures on “natural philosophy

Prominent speakers were invited every year (excluding 1939–1942 because of World War II).

Well-known Christmas lecturers include David Attenborough (1973), Carl Sagan (1977), and Richard Dawkins (1991). Faraday was the presenter on 19 occasions.

8. Michael Faraday’s Image was Featured On British Money.

Photo by Thomas Phillips – Wikimedia

To honour Faraday’s role in the advancement of British science, the Bank of England unveiled a £20 bill with his portrait on June 5, 1991.

He joined an illustrious group of Britons with their own notes, including William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, and Isaac Newton.

By the time it was withdrawn in February 2001, the bank estimated that about 120 million Faraday bills were in circulation (that’s more than 2 billion quid).

9.  Michael Faraday and a Colleague Coined Electrical Terms.

Photo by Simon Hariyott – Wikimedia

Faraday’s work was so groundbreaking that no descriptors existed for many of his discoveries.

With his fellow scientist William Whewell, Faraday coined a number of futuristic-sounding names for the forces and concepts he identified, such as electrode, anode, cathode, and ion.

Whewell himself coined the word “scientist” in 1834, after “natural philosopher” had become too vague to describe people working in increasingly specialized fields.

10. Faraday Suffered Memory Loss.

Photo courtesy – Wikimedia

Faraday’s memory started faltering when he was 48.

He experienced vertigo and other neurological symptoms, but the cause was a mystery.

Following a three-year hiatus, he returned to the Royal Institution, where he experimented in his laboratory until his early 70s.

Faraday still had inexplicable spurts of giddiness, depression, and extreme forgetfulness.

Nobody knows what caused the syndrome, though some believe his exposure to mercury was the source.

Albert Einstein regarded Faraday as a personal hero. When he received a book about Faraday, Einstein once remarked, “This man loved mysterious Nature as a lover loves his distant beloved.”

Einstein was known to have had a portrait of Faraday on his wall in his study, where it hung alongside pictures of legendary physicists Sir Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.

Another scientist who praised his achievements was Earnest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics.

Of Faraday, he once stated, “When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time.”

Michael Faraday’s Greatest Achievements

Scientist Michael Faraday revolutionized the world of electrochemistry and electromagnetism with his pioneering work in these fields. His greatest accomplishment was discovering electromagnetic induction, the principle behind electric generators and transformers.

Aside from diamagnetism, Faraday also invented a device for blocking electromagnetic fields, the Faraday cage. In addition to understanding electrolysis, which involves using electric current to decompose a chemical compound, he discovered benzene, one of the most important organic compounds. It was Faraday’s achievements that revolutionized our understanding of electrical and magnetic fields, and they continue to have an impact on the scientific world today.