Michael Faraday and the Electrical Century (Icon Science)

Author: Iwan Rhys Morus
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785782681
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Book Description
The only scientist to ever appear on the British twenty pound note, Michael Faraday is one of the most recognisable names in the history of science. Faraday's forte was electricity, a revolutionary force in nineteenth-century society. The electric telegraph had made mass-communication possible and inventors looked forward to the day when electricity would control all aspects of life. By the end of the century, this dream was well on its way to being realised. But what was Faraday's role in all this? How did his science come to have such an impact on the lives of the Victorians (and ultimately on us)? Iwan Morus tells the story of Faraday's upbringing in London and his apprenticeship at the Royal Institution under the supervision of the flamboyant chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, all set against the backdrop of a vibrant scientific culture and an empire near the peak of its power.

Michael Faraday and the Electrical Century

Author: Iwan Rhys Morus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electricity
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description

Michael Faraday and the Electrical Century

Author: Iwan Rhys Morus
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781422391952
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
The only scientist to appear on the British 20 pound note, Michael Faraday, is one of the most recognizable names in the history of science. Faraday¿s forte was electricity, a revolutionary force in 19th-century society. The electric telegraph made mass-communication possible; hopeful inventors during the 1840s looked forward to the day when everything would be done by electricity. By the end of the century, electricity really was in the process of transforming everyday life. Here is the story of Faraday¿s upbringing in scientific London and his apprenticeship at the Royal Institution with the flamboyant chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, against the backdrop of a vibrant scientific culture at the center of an empire near the peak of its power. Illustrations.

The Electric Life of Michael Faraday

Author: Alan Hirshfeld
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 080271823X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
Michael Faraday was one of the most gifted and intuitive experimentalists the world has ever seen. Born into poverty in 1791 and trained as a bookbinder, Faraday rose through the ranks of the scientific elite even though, at the time, science was restricted to the wealthy or well-connected. During a career that spanned more than four decades, Faraday laid the groundwork of our technological society-notably, inventing the electric generator and electric motor. He also developed theories about space, force, and light that Einstein called the "greatest alteration . . . in our conception of the structure of reality since the foundation of theoretical physics by Newton." The Electric Life of Michael Faraday dramatizes Faraday's passion for understanding the dynamics of nature. He manned the barricades against superstition and pseudoscience, and pressed for a scientifically literate populace years before science had been deemed worthy of common study. A friend of Charles Dickens and an inspiration to Thomas Edison, the deeply religious Faraday sought no financial gain from his discoveries, content to reveal God's presence through the design of nature. In The Electric Life of Michael Faraday, Alan Hirshfeld presents a portrait of an icon of science, making Faraday's most significant discoveries about electricity and magnetism readily understandable, and presenting his momentous contributions to the modern world.

Michael Faraday: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Frank A.J.L James
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199574316
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Book Description
Known as the 'father' of electrical engineering, Michael Faraday is one of the best known scientific figures of all time. In this Very Short Introduction, Frank A.J.L James looks at Faraday's life and works, examining the institutional context in which he lived and worked, his scientific research, and his continuing legacy in science today.

Michael Faraday, His Life and Work

Author: Silvanus Phillips Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electricity
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description

Nikola Tesla and the Electrical Future

Author: Iwan Rhys Morus
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785785753
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
'[This] crisply succinct, beautifully synthesized study brings to life Tesla, his achievements and failures...and the hopeful thrum of an era before world wars.' - Nature Nikola Tesla is one of the most enigmatic, curious and controversial figures in the history of science. An electrical pioneer as influential in his own way as Thomas Edison, he embodied the aspirations and paradoxes of an age of innovation that seemed to have the future firmly in its grasp. In an era that saw the spread of power networks and wireless telegraphy, the discovery of X-rays, and the birth of powered flight, Tesla made himself synonymous with the electrical future under construction but opinion was often divided as to whether he was a visionary, a charlatan, or a fool. Iwan Rhys Morus examines Tesla's life in the context of the extraordinary times in which he lived and worked, colourfully evoking an age in which anything seemed possible, from capturing the full energy of Niagara to communicating with Mars. Shattering the myth of the 'man out of time', Morus demonstrates that Tesla was in all ways a product of his era, and shows how the popular image of the inventor-as-maverick-outsider was deliberately crafted by Tesla - establishing an archetype that still resonates today.

How the Victorians Took Us to the Moon

Author: Iwan Rhys Morus
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785789295
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
'[An] insightful analysis of 19th-century futurism ... Morus's account is as much a cautionary tale as a flag-waving celebration.' - DUNCAN BELL, NEW STATESMAN '[ How the Victorians Took Us to the Moon] rattles thrillingly through such developments as the Transatlantic telegraph cable, the steam locomotive and electric power and recalls the excitable predictions of the fiction of the time.' KATY GUEST, THE GUARDIAN 'Excellent ... A terrific insight into why the Victorian era was a golden age of engineering.' - NICK SMITH, ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE By the end of the Victorian era, the world had changed irrevocably. The speed of the technological development brought about between 1800 and 1900 was completely unprecedented in human history. And as the Victorians looked to the skies and beyond as the next frontier to be explored and conquered, they were inventing, shaping and moulding the very idea of the future. To get us to this future, the Victorians created a new way of ordering and transforming nature, built on grand designs and the mass-mobilisation of the resources of Empire - and they revolutionised science in the process. In this rich and absorbing book, distinguished historian of science Iwan Rhys Morus tells the story of how this future was made. From Charles Babbage's dream of mechanising mathematics to Isambard Kingdom Brunel's tunnel beneath the Thames, from George Cayley's fantasies of powered flight to Nikola Tesla's visions of an electrical world, this is a story of towering personalities, clashing ambitions, furious rivalries and conflicting cultures - a vibrant tapestry of remarkable lives that transformed the world and ultimately took us to the Moon.

The Life and Letters of Faraday

Author: Bence Jones
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 462

Book Description
The Life and Letters of Faraday By Dr. Bence Jones [Volume 1]

The Science Magpie

Author: Simon Flynn
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1848314310
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
From the Large Hadron Collider rap to the sins of Isaac Newton, The Science Magpie is a compelling collection of scientific curiosities. Expand your knowledge as you view the history of the Earth on the face of a clock, tremble at the power of the Richter scale and learn how to measure the speed of light in your kitchen. Skip through time with Darwin’s note on the pros and cons of marriage, take part in an 1858 Cambridge exam, meet the African schoolboy with a scientific puzzle named after him and much more.