Michael Faraday

 Science / Chemist & Physicist

Brief biography of Michael Faraday, considered 'father of electricity', 18th century English physicist and chemist, the greatest experimental scientist in history, famous for his breakthroughs in electricity and electrochemistry. 

Faraday is considered the greatest experimental scientist in history. He discovered the first electric generators and transformers, electromagnetic rotations, electromagnetic and magneto-electric inductions that produced the first electrical generator and transformer, diamagnetism, magneto-optical effect, and the laws of electrolysis.    

The Poor Boy  

Michael Faraday was born on September 22, 1791, in Newington Butts, south London, to a poor working-class family, James, a blacksmith, and Margaret Faraday. He was five, when the family moved to Jacob's Well Mews, near Manchester Square. When he was 19, his father died, leaving his mother to support the family.

The Faraday family belonged to the Sandemanians, a religious sect that believes in the literal truth of the Bible. Faraday maintained a separation between his religion and his science, both important to him.

Bookbinding Apprentice

Aged thirteen, he started work as an apprentice of George Riebau, a bookbinder and bookseller. He was a keen reader, a later influence in his life. He joined a group of young men called City Philosophical Society. They attended lectures and exchanged ideas on scientific matters.

In 1812, Riebau showed to Mr. Dance, one of his customers, some of Faraday's notes. Mr. Dance, a member of the Royal Institution of London, was so impressed that he bought Faraday tickets for a series of lectures at the Royal Institution. This time, Faraday had finished his seven-year apprenticeship with Riebau and had become a qualified bookbinder.

Davy's Apprentice     

The lectures Faraday attended at the Royal Institution were given by the famous scientist Sir Humphry Davy. Faraday took notes during the lectures. Later, he wrote and sent to Davy a copy of his notes. Davy was impressed. When Davy was temporarily blinded from a chemical experimental explosion he took Faraday as his amanuensis. Eventually, he was hired on March 1, 1813, as a replacement of Davy's assistant who was dismissed for misconduct.  

When Davy went on a tour with his wife, he took Faraday with him and introduced him to the leading scientist including Volta and Ampère. Faraday's only problem was that Davy's wife treated him like a servant.

Faraday the Experimenter, Lecturer, Scientific Writer

On return to London after 18 months, Faraday began his experiments alongside working as Davy's assistant. He began his lectures at the Philosophical Society and published his first scientific paper, the Analysis of Native Caustic Lime of Tuscany.  

The Analytical Chemist

In 1820, Faraday produced the first known compounds of carbon and chlorine. Inspired with the advances in electricity and magnetism by Aragó and  Ampère, and Oersted's magnetic effect of an electric current, Faraday further experimented on the subject. The following year, he published "On some new Electro-Magnetical Motions, and on the Theory of Magnetism" in the Quarterly Journal of Science.  

In 1821 Faraday married Sarah Barnard, also a member of the Sandemanian church. The Faradays lived in the Royal Institution.

More Scientific Discoveries

For the next twenty years since 1821, Faraday made one scientific discovery after another. He made his first electrical discovery, the electromagnetic rotations. He worked on the liquification of gases, discovery of benzene, process of electrolysis, the laws of electrochemistry, and devised new scientific words.  

Awards and Recognition

In 1824, Faraday was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of which Davy opposed but over-ruled. An excellent lecturer, Faraday instituted the celebrated series of Friday evening discourses. He was professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He was in demand to give practical advice and commercial analysis.

In 1832, Faraday received more honours: honorary degree from the University of Oxford, Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution, the Royal Medal and the Copley Medal, both from the Royal Society. In 1836 he was made a Member of the Senate of the University of London.  

Final Years

By mid-1850's, now spent, Faraday continued his children's Christmas lectures, including the chemical history of the candle. In 1864, he declined the Presidency of the Royal Institution, and gracefully retreated from the scientific world. Queen Victoria gave him a Grace and Favour House at Hampton Court, where he died on August 25, 1867.

Beyond Faraday

Faraday's work for the magnetic field concept formed the foundations of the mathematical description of the electromagnetic theory taken up by James Clerk Maxwell after Faraday's death.

 

Resources:

Chambers Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002

Ellyard, David. Who Discovered What When. New Holland, 2005

Farendon, J. and Woolf, A., Rooney, A. and Gogerly, L.. The Great Scientist. Capella, 2005

(Note: I originally published this article at Suite101.com, 21 May 2008. / Tel) 

 

(c) September 2015. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Edward Frankland: Pioneer of the Theory of Valence

Sir Edward Frankland was a British chemist, one of the foremost English chemists of his day. He laid the foundation of modern structural chemistry through his discovery of the theory of valence, which states that atoms come together to make chemical compounds in regular ratios. Frankland was one of the originators of organometallic chemistry and introduced the concept of combining power or valence. An expert in water quality and analysis, he was a member of the second royal commission on the pollution of rivers, and studied London's water quality for decades. He also studied luminous flames and the effects of atmospheric pressure on dense ignited gas, and was one of the discoverers of helium.

He also introduced the term “bond” to describe the way that atoms link to each other. Frankland became professor of chemistry at the prestigious Royal College of Chemistry and he published Water Analysis for Sanitary Purposes.

Edward Frankland was born in Lancashire, England on January 18, 1825, an illegitimate son of a prominent lawyer. At the age of 15, he became an apprentice in a chemist’s shop. By 1847, he was a chemistry teacher at Queenwood College, Hampshire, but soon went to Germany in Marburg to work with Robert Bunsen for three months. 

Frankland Discovers Organometallic Compounds

While working with Bunsen, Frankland became fascinated by a class of chemicals that bound metal atoms to other compounds, now called organometals. The particular set of these that he was looking at were zinc dialkyls.

An addition to studying organometals, he used these compounds for entertainment. He described the process of adding water to these compounds, which resulted in a greenish blue flame, several feet long, shooting out of the tube. The display caused excitement among those present and it diffused an abominable odor.

This pattern, however, had actually been seen before. A few years earlier, Alexander Crum Brown reported it in his M.D. thesis at the University of Edinburgh, entitled “On the Theory of Chemical Combination.”

A General Symmetry of Chemical Compounds Formula

What both Crum Brown and Frankland saw was that when elements combine, they did so in whole number ratios. Antoine Lavoisier had been moving to the idea when he split and recombined water, and found constant proportions of hydrogen and oxygen were always involved. Frankland took this further and developed what he called atomicity, now known in the chemistry as valence. In his first report he said, “The combining power of the attracting element… is always satisfied by the same number of atoms…”

Frankland’s Valence Theory

The theory of valence states the following:

The valence number equals the number of chemical bonds that any given atom can make with other atoms when forming a compound.

In terms of atomic bonding, the idea is that every atom has a fixed number of bonds that it can form, and that to be stable, all of these bonds must be used. For example, if a hydrogen atom bonds with another hydrogen atom, then the bonds on each atom will be fully used in forming H2, otherwise known as the molecule of hydrogen. Alternatively, two hydrogen atoms can combine with the two bonds of oxygen to form H-0-H, or water. Frankland further introduced the compound notation for what is now known as H20 (water.)

Valence of Carbon Forming Organic Chemical Compounds

The concept of valence was picked up and developed later by Friedrich August Kerkule, who decided that the valence of carbon must be four. He further suggested a radical idea that this would allow carbon to form into chains of atoms, therefore creating huge molecules. He was right.

In 1865, Kerkule proposed that carbon not only form chains but also link into closed six-atom rings. In the simplest carbon molecule, three of each carbon’s bond on each carbon binds to a hydrogen atom. The resulting molecule is sweet smelling benzene, an organic chemical compound, containing six atoms of carbon and six hydrogen atoms.

Scientific Legacy of Edward Frankland

Edward Frankland’s concept of the theory of valence forms the foundation of modern structural chemistry. Kerkule’s later realization that carbon can form chains and rings gave rise to organic chemistry. Between them, Frankland and Kerkule enabled chemistry to become an important tool in the creation of new complex compound molecules beyond what already existed in their day.

The discovery of the theory of valences produced a huge impact in chemical engineering and industrial purposes that range from medical drugs to textile dyes. For instance, benzene has been used as an additive in gasoline. It has also been used as a solvent and precursor to industrial chemicals in drugs, plastics, dyes and synthetic rubber. Sir Edward Frankland was knighted in 1897. After a brief illness, he died two years later, in August 9, 1899.

Suggested Video:

Theory of Valence. YouTube, uploaded by Ruth Robinson. Accessed May 21, 2014. 

Valence Bond Theory.  A gentle introduction to the concept of valence bond theory, which treats a chemical bond as an overlap of atomic orbitals. YouTube, uploaded by Ben's Cham Videos. Accessed May 21, 2014.

Sources:

Farndon, John, etal. The Great Scientists. London: Arcturus Publishing. (2005)

McGovern, Una, Ed. Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers. (2002)
Moore, Pete. E=MC². London: Quintet Publishing Ltd. (2002)
 

Note: I originally published this piece for Suite101.com. This is an abridged version. / Tel

(c) May 2011. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.