FOR HUMANITY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 292, 5 September 1931, Page 21

FOR HUMANITY

Michael Faraday’s Life Of Service NO REWARD SOUGHT In 1831, Michael Faraday began, or rather resumed, in his laboratory at the Royal Institution, experiments on the Induction of electric currents, and on August 29 of that year he made the discovery in which lies the origin of the dynamo and starting-point of the utilisation of electric power for the purposes of man. On that day a century ago, as his diary shows, he wound two coils of wire on to opposite sides of a soft iron ring, connected one coil to a battery and the other to a galvanometer, and at "make” and “break” of the battery circuit observed deflections of the galvanometer connected in thp other circuit From this simple experiment, and the variations made by Faraday in succeeding trials, have grown in the past 100 years the science of electrical engineering and the great electrical industry in all its phases as we know it to-day. To mark Faraday’s epoch-mak-

ing discoveries, a special public demonstration of electrical developments was given .under the auspices of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers and the Institute of Electrical Engineers at Victoria University College last evening. Michael Faraday was born at Newington, Surrey, on September 22, 1791. His father was a blacksmith, and Faraday was apprenticed to a- bookbinder at an early age. At the age of twenty-one he heard four lectures by Sir Humphrey Davy, and from that time he formed a strong desire to probe into the secrets of nature. Appointment as Assistant.

Following his appointment as assistant at the laboratory of the lioyal In- : stitution in 1813, and a tour through ; Europe with Davy, he became director of the laboratory in 1825. In, 1833 be was appointed Fullerton Professor at the institution for life, without the obligation to deliver lectures. He remained at the institution for 54 years, and died at Hampton Court on August 25, 1867. Faraday died comparatively i>oor, yet his discoveries resulted in patents which must have brought hundreds of thousands of pounds to others. This attitude of the scientist was in keeping with his life. Service to his fellow men came first, coupled with a love of truth. Early in his career he made up his mind that he would never sell a discovery or invention for exploitation when he believed that it should be used freely by the whole world. It is related that in one stage in his career he reached a point where he had definitely to ask himself whether he would make money or science the object of his work. He chose science, yet after his epoch-making discoveries of 1831, many business men would have paid him thousands of pounds a year for his services. His reward was not the £lO.OOO a year he might have earned for the last 30 years of his life, but the glory of establishing England’s position as a scientific nation and the knowledge of the benefits he had given to civilisation. For 30 years Faraday was adviser to Trinity House, and his comment regarding his payment of £2OO indicates his attitude. “I can at any time convert my time to money,” he said, ‘‘but I do not require more of the latter than is sufficient for necessary purposes. The sum, therefore, of £2OO, is quite enough in itself.” It is no surprise, therefore, that sueh a man won the affection of all who came in contact with him. His married life was perfectly happy, and 30 years after his wedding he wrotes to his w’ife in the most affectionate terms. One of his letters, written in 1848, might have been the love epistle of a young man recently engaged. Probably his greatest compliment to his wife was paid when he wrote, 28 years after his marriage, that it was “an event which more than any other has contributed by my earthly happiness and healthful state of mind.” L.ove of Young People. Faraday had no children, but his real lov« of boys and girls showed itaelf in I

his lectures to young people. Notwithstanding the fame his discoveries brought him, he remained intensely human, a man who preserved a simple but beautiful faith. He worshipped at a Sandemanian Church. His lectures to boys and girls were the first of their kind, and he realised the importance of explaining science to laymen in everyday terms. ' Charles Dickens, when editor of Household Words, was so impressed by Faraday’s lectures on “Science at the Breakfast Table," that he wrote to him asking for permission to use his notes in the paper. The short but interesting correspondence between the two great men is still preserved. Faraday remained a boy at heart throughout his life, and would turn from chemicals and electricity to laugh at a Punch and Judy show or to romp with children.

Six lectures on the "Chemical History of the Candle” which Faraday gave during the Christmas holidays of 1880 were taken down by W. Crookes, afterward Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., and it is interesting to read how' they begin: “I claim the privilege of speaking to juveniles as a juvenile myself.” Speaking of Faraday’s electrical di»coveries in a broadcast talk, Sir William Bragg said: “How many and great these are we may realise if we think of the consequences of stopping every electric current that is running at this mbment, so that we bring to an end all electric distribution of light and power, all transmission of news by telegraph and telephone, and a hundred other uses of electricity on which we have, learned to rely.”