In 1831 MIchael Faraday found that electricity can be made to flow in a coil of wire by moving that coil in the magnetic field between the poles of a U-shaped magnet. The current can be made more powerful simply by using more turns of wire in the coil and by using more powerful magnets.
All the generators which supply our modern world with electricity are made of magnets and coils of wire.
Michael Faraday also showed that if a wire that has electricity flowing through it is placed in a magnetic field the wire wíll move. This discovery became the basis for the later development of electric motors.
Faraday is often called the father of the age of electricity.
Faraday established that magnetism could influence rays of light and that there was an basic relationship between the 2 phenomena.
He made discoveries in the field of chemistry, too. Among them was benzene, which is the starting point in the manufacture of many dyes, perfumes, and explosives used today.
Faraday's accomplishments seem more wonderful when we realize that he had very little schooling. His father, who was a blacksmith, was too poor to send him to school. So the boy went to work in a bookbinder's shop and became interested in books on science.
Michael Faraday married Sarah Barnard on June 12, 1821, They had no children.
Faraday died on August 25, 1867.
German physicist, Albert Einstein, kept a portrait of Michael Faraday on his study wall alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and J. C. Maxwell.
