Experimental Researches in Electricity

Originally apprenticed to a bookbinder, Michael Faraday (1791-1867) began to attend Sir Humphrey Davy's chemistry lectures purely out of interest. Although he soon recognised that science would be his vocation, there was no defined career path to follow, and when he applied to Davy for work he was gently told to 'attend to the bookbinding'. It was only after a laboratory explosion in which Davy partially lost his sight that Faraday was taken on as his amanuensis. From this difficult beginning stemmed perhaps the most famous scientific career of the nineteenth century. This three-volume collection of Faraday's papers provides a comprehensive record of a key branch of his work. Volume 3, first published in 1855, includes his landmark paper on the effect of magnetism on light (known now as the Faraday Effect), work on the chemical implications of magnetism, and a fascinating speculation on a link between electricity and gravity.19. On the magnetization of light and the illumination of magnetic lines of force; 20. On new magnetic actions, and on the magnetic condition of all matter; 21. Action of magnets on the magnetic metals and their compounds; 22. On the crystalline polarity of bismuth; 23. On the polar or other condition of diamagnetic bodies; 24. On the possible relation of gravity to electricity; 25. On the magnetic and diamagnetic condition of bodies; 26. Magnetic conduction power; 27. Experimental enquiry into the laws of atmospheric magnetic action; 28. On lines of magnetic force; 29. On the employment of the induced magneto-electric current as a test and measure of magnetic forces.