(word processor parameters LM=8, RM=75, TM=2, BM=2) Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501 Sponsored by Vangard Sciences PO BOX 1031 Mesquite, TX 75150 There are ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS on duplicating, publishing or distributing the files on KeelyNet! December 7, 1990 Faraday1.ASC -------------------------------------------------------------------- On Michael Faraday by Waldemar Kaempffert I (Faraday) once showed Mr. Gladstone how an induced current of electricity could SPIN A LITTLE COPPER DISK WITHOUT TOUCHING ANYTHING. "What's the good of that?" he asked. He was a practical man of affairs, and I was not. So I gave him a practical answer, "Some day you will be able to TAX IT," I said. I believe that the practical man is OFTEN VERY IMPRACTICAL. He wants an invention or discovery that will work - that is, MAKE MONEY. But the time comes when the invention fails to meet a new set of conditions, so that the theorist must step in and explain the failure and suggest a theory out of which some really practical good will come. No experiment is worth much unless it is explained by a good theory. Great inventions always spring out of good theories. I never had a systematic education. As a pupil in a local day school, I learned no more than the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. But I read much, especially when I was apprenticed to G. Riebau, a kindly bookseller. By chance I attended four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry Davy, made careful notes, transcribed them neatly, bound them and sent them to him with a letter in which I expressed the hope that with his aid I might forsake trade. To my astonishment he found a place for me in the Royal Institution. There I remained to the end of my days. I belong to a small, despised Christian sect called Sandemanians. I believe with them that it is futile to bring religion and science into harmony. Page 1 Religion is based on FAITH, science on REASONING. I ask myself : Why am I here? SCIENCE cannot answer. It is not concerned with PURPOSE. But religion IS concerned with purpose, and what that purpose is must be a MATTER OF FAITH. I believe that without faith man would drift helplessly - that love, sacrifice, truth would have no meaning. All told I have performed about 2,000 experiments. Without experimentation I am nothing. Not one of my many experiments was performed with a PRACTICAL PURPOSE IN VIEW, though many proved to be of INDUSTRIAL IMPORTANCE. I never patented anything. I foresaw the uses to which my discovery of electromagnetic induction might be put, but preferred to leave its APPLICATION TO OTHERS. In my earlier years at the Royal Institution I had to eke out my slender salary with outside work and in that way made a few hundred extra pounds a year. I soon gave this up. It is not too difficult to make money if there is SELF-DENIAL AND INDUSTRY. To me money-making was an UNPLEASANT DISTRACTION. It always took my mind off the work that I WANTED TO DO. But what was that work? As I look back at it I see that it was the QUEST OF TRUTH. I know that a scientist has no way of recognizing truth when he sees it. But the QUEST GOES ON AND ON. It must go on. Without it there would be no SCIENCE. Suppose that science had succeeded in creating a living man - something that could be accepted as a counterpart of the men we see about us. And suppose that this creature could think as we do. Unless it was concerned with the TRUTH it would never be a REAL man, never a real SCIENTIST. That much I learned in my experimentation. I believe that THERE IS SOMETHING in the world of experience THAT IS INTENT ON TRUTH. The RESPONSIBILITY of the SCIENTIST is a responsibility to SEEK AND PROCLAIM the TRUTH AS HE SEES IT. We do not PATENT truths. We GIVE THEM TO OTHERS. It is because giving is part of their creed that scientists constitute a world-wide intellectual fraternity. Religion may PREACH the BROTHERHOOD OF MAN; science PRACTICES IT. The lesson is not always heeded. I believe that mankind will prosper the more it WIDENS AND DEEPENS the SCIENTIFIC HABIT of mind Page 2 and that the greatest of all problems is that of making this scientific habit more EFFECTIVE. As that scientific mind is acquired there will be more and more giving. I BELIEVE in GIVING. By giving I mean MORE than presenting a single precious discovery to the world. I mean that NOTHING MAY BE WITHHELD - not even a crumb of KNOWLEDGE. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Morse would not have invented his telegraph, (nor Tesla his rotating magnetic field motor), nor Bell his telephone, nor Edison his many electrical contrivances had it not been for MICHAEL FARADAY. He was probably the GREATEST EXPERIMENTER that ever lived. Electrical engineering as we know it BEGINS WITH HIM. When he did his work, which was largely in the first half of the last century (1800 - 1850), there was not even an electric doorbell. There were only TWO SOURCES OF ELECTRICITY. One was the electric machine with glass plates that had to be rotated and rubbed with fur to produce electric sparks; the other was the battery. Faraday was not only an experimenter but a theorist. As a theorist he ranks with Newton and Einstein. He belonged to a very materialistic period; yet he was a spiritual force in the development of science. A devoutly religious man, his profound belief in the spirit played as much a part in his scientific success as his skill and his industry. As one of the most distinguished scientists of his time, he made scores of experiments and observations. His crowning achievement, the one that enabled society to pass from steam to electricity, was the GENERATION OF ELECTRIC CURRENT by moving magnets and coils of wire relative to each other - the PRINCIPLE OF THE DYNAMO. Faraday lived from 1791 to 1876. One would call him the most remarkable bookbinder who ever lived, for he was trained for this occupation and actually practices it for a little while. Then at twenty-two he unexpectedly was appointed a laboratory assistant of the Royal Institute of Great Britain through the influence of the eminent chemist Sir Humphry Davy. Soon he was to spend two years traveling through Europe with Sir Humphry, and he promptly began making his important discoveries. Right away he discovered two new chlorides of carbon and successfully liquefied several gases. By the time he was thirty he published a sketch of history of electromagnetism and in that same year effected the revolution of a magnetic electric needle around an electrical current. He went on to discover the effect of one current on another in terms Page 3 of their deflection and attraction, and the characteristics of the electrical current produced when a magnet is inserted in a coil of wire. It was this that led to the development of the MAGNETO, the DYNAMO and the GENERATOR. -------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have comments or other information relating to such topics as this paper covers, please upload to KeelyNet or send to the Vangard Sciences address as listed on the first page. Thank you for your consideration, interest and support. Jerry W. Decker.........Ron Barker...........Chuck Henderson Vangard Sciences/KeelyNet -------------------------------------------------------------------- If we can be of service, you may contact Jerry at (214) 324-8741 or Ron at (214) 242-9346 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 4