Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

4.8

Michael Faraday was born in London in a poor family. He did not learn much and spent a lot of time playing in the streets when he was a small boy.

When he was fourteen he got some work in a bookseller’s shop. It was important that he worked for a bookseller. He read as many books as he could.

Some talks about science were given at that time in London. Faraday wanted to go to these talks, but he had no money to pay. So his brother who was a working man helped him with the money.

One day Michael went to a talk by Humphry Davy, England’s greatest scientist of the time. He liked it so much that he tried to get work in Davy’s laboratory, but there was no work for him.

A few months later the great scientist remembered the young boy and Michael became Davy’s laboratory assistant.

Working with Davy, Michael Faraday received an important education. Like Davy, he became interested in electricity.

In those days scientists knew little about electricity. Michael Faraday spent long weeks and months studying it. At last he saw that electricity could be made by a machine.

This was the beginning of all the great machines that make our electricity today. Without them we can have no electricity. We can have no telephones, no radio and no television. Each of these things is invention made for man by the work of Faraday and others with electricity.

Faraday studied different sciences, not only electricity.