The myth of Michael Faraday: Michael Faraday was not just one of Britain's greatest experimenters. A closer look at the man and his work reveals that he was also a clever theoretician (original) (raw)

On 22 September 1791 Michael Faraday was born in a London slum, the
third son of a poor blacksmith. Although denied a formal education, Faraday
rose from poverty and obscurity to secure a central place in science. He
was a truly great British hero, but the popular image of him as a kind of
‘Isambard Kingdom Brunel’ of science does not do his memory justice.

Faraday’s bicentenary is being celebrated in Britain in several ways.
An exhibition of his life and work will continue at the Science Museum until
the end of December (reviewed in New Scientist, 29 June). Several new books
about Faraday and the Royal Institution have been published. His name and
picture feature on a new stamp and a new £20 note. A memorial service
was held in Westminster Abbey on 20 September. All these will have gone
some way towards raising awareness of Faraday among the British public.

Imagine asking the average person to name half a dozen famous scientists.
Whose names might they be? Albert Einstein? Isaac Newton? Charles Darwin?
Richard Feynman? James Watson? Stephen Hawking? What distinguishes these
scientists from others, including Faraday? Rightly or wrongly, they are
known for their contributions to theoretical science. It appears that we
prize great thinkers above all others.

Faraday – so the story goes – was not a great thinker. We have a persistent
image of him as a very practical scientist, experimenting in a dingy laboratory
with coils of wire, bar magnets and iron filings. Nobody would dispute the
claim that his experimental discoveries about electricity dramatically and
irreversibly changed the shape of society. But for many…