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Reading and Rendering

Michael Faraday and the Start of the Electric Era (2)

The modern life can’t be imagined without electricity. The era of electricity began in 1880-ies. The electricity has replaced the energy of steam. It became possible thanks to the discovery made in 1831 by Michael Faraday. He discovered the law of the electromagnetic induction. Just this law allows people elaborating electric power.

The electric power is the most convenient form of energy. Using electricity has changed civilization. But people have used electricity only little more than one hundred years. The reason is that in nature we meet electricity very seldom. In order to use electricity people had to learn how to get it artificially.

Nowadays people receive electricity using the law of electromagnetic induction, which gives the way to get electricity with the help of magnets. Elaboration of electric power by generators is based on this law. Without it bulbs would not shine, phones would not call and we would live in the other kind of world. The person who learnt to receive electricity artificially was Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867).

He was born in the suburb of London in a family of a smith. The family was so poor, that children used to receive a help from the religious community. It made 1 roll in a week. At 13 Faraday was apprenticed to a bookbinder. He read a lot of books being bound, especially in physics and chemistry. Thus he knew about electricity. Once, when Faraday was already 19 he heard four public lectures of the famous chemist Davy. Faraday made a synopsis, bound it as beautifully as he could and sent to Dewy together with the letter. He told that he wished to go in for science, but did not know the way. Surprised by unusual message, Davy invited Faraday to be his assistant. Davy said later, that of all his discoveries the most significant was Faraday. The work in Davy’s laboratory became for Faraday both school and university.

Faraday investigated electricity, magnets, light. He was convinced, that in nature everything is related. That’s why he thought out experiences, trying to find communications between phenomena. In 1831 he found out the dependence further called the law of electromagnetic induction. It tells that closed wire moving in a field of magnet gets electricity. This rule made it possible getting electricity in an artificial way.

Faraday got many offers for commercial use of his ideas, for building first electro generators. He rejected this kind of suggestions because of his pure scientific interests. The mass production of electricity started in about 50 years after his discovery.

Faraday is also considered to be the inventor of balloons. In 1824 he made first balloons for experiments with hydrogen. He wrote about it in a scientific journal. The next year the rubberier Hanock produced spheres in the form of a toy.

Ernest Rutherford (2)

English researchers caused three energy revolutions. In XVIII Watt started the age of steam, in XIX Faraday presented electricity, in XX nuclear power became possible thanks to Ernest Rutherford. It was he who created the planet model of atom. Before Rutherford atom was thought to be single and indivisible. Rutherford proved it to consist of smaller particles. He showed that dividing atom released energy. He doubted that it was possible to use it. Nevertheless nuclear power stations are based on the ideas of Rutherford. Besides, he was the first man who managed to transform an atom and get the atom of another substance. In 1919 he turned into nitrogen into oxygen.

Thomas Edison (1)

Thomas Alva Edison lit up the world with his invention of the electric light. Without him, the world might still be a dark place. However, the electric light was not his only invention. He also invented the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and over 1,200 other things. About every two weeks he created something new.

Thomas A. Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847. His family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, when he was seven years old. Surprisingly, he attended school for only two months. His mother, a former teacher, taught him a few things, but Thomas was mostly self-educated. His natural curiosity led him to start experimenting at a young age with electrical and mechanical things at home.

When he was 12 years old, he got his first job. He became a newsboy on a train that ran between Port Huron and Detroit. He set up a laboratory in a baggage care of the train so that he could continue his experiments in his spare time. Unfortunately, his first work experience did not end well. Thomas was fired when he accidentally set fire to the floor of the baggage car.

Thomas then worked for five years as a telegraph operator, but he continued to spend much of his time on the job conducting experiments. He got his first patent in 1868 for a vote recorder run by electricity. However, the vote recorder was not a success. In 1870, he sold another invention, a stock-ticker, for $40,000. A stock-ticker is a machine that automatically prints stock prices on a tape. He was then able to build his first shop in Newark, New Jersey.

Thomas Edison was totally deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other, but thought of his deafness as a blessing in many ways. It kept conversations short, so that he could have more time for work. He called himself a "two-shift man" because he worked 16 out of every 24 hours. Sometimes he worked so intensely that his wife had to remind him to sleep and eat.

Thomas Edison died at the age of 84 on October 18, 1931, at his estate in West Orange, New Jersey. He left numerous inventions that improved the quality of life all over the world.

Newton (3)

His main book was called "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy". It described the principles of the world. Its influence on the science and technique has have no analogies. Lagrange wrote: «Newton was the greatest genius from all ever existed, and the happiest one, for only once it is allowed to the person to discover the system of the world».

Isaac Newton was born in Christmas night of 1642. This fact made him believe, that he was the only person in the world who could understand the plan of the God. He was born in the village of Woolsthorpe in the family of a farmer, who had died several months before. Newton was born so small, that he could have been put in a beer mug. It was thought, that he would not survive. But he had and lived till 84. When Newton was 10 his mother sent him to a town to study at school. He lived in the house of chemist Clark. In his first years at school was in the end of the progress list. He was interested in the other things. He made mechanical toys, lunched kites with fiery lamps in the nights. And people thought it was a new comet.

The chemist had three children: Newton made friendship with the girl, and quarreled with her brothers. Once he decided to bypass them in school achievements. In a short time he became the first pupil at school. The director noticed Newton’s abilities and persuaded his mother to send him to Cambridge. He became the student of the famous «Trinity College». Newton was accepted as a «sizar», a poor student, whose duty was to serve masters and senior students. By this time Newton’s mother was between 2000 most succeeding people of England. But she didn’t pay for her son at College: she was offended by his refuse to become a farmer.

In 1664 Newton got his bachelor degree and left Cambridge. There was an epidemic of plague in England, besides in 1666 it was rumored about a doomsday. Newton was little more than 20, this period became the creative top in his life. Cambridge was disbanded. There was no sense teaching students before a doomsday. Newton got a plenty of time to think. It was just in Woolsthorpe that he outlined the basic positions of his main scientific ideas. He didn’t "make discoveries". He developed his ideas for many years. But in Woolsthorpe his theories got the start.

In 1667 Newton returned to Cambridge to teach students. His lectures weren’t popular, because they were very difficult. Sometimes there were only 3 students sitting, sometimes nobody came. Newton used to be happy then. He went home to think and write. For 30 years Newton remained the professor of Cambridge.

Newton’s life was full of riddles. Here is one of them. On one hand, he was sure, that he was the only man, who was able to understand the divine plan, and solve how the nature is arranged. But he didn’t want to publish the results of his works. And, even if he did it, he had been pressed by his friends. He was absorbed with scientific problems and was extremely absent-minded. There is a story two cats which lived in Newton’s house. There was the big one and the little one. To leave them walking Newton made for them two holes in the door. He was asked, what for? Why did he make two holes? The smaller cat could have passed through the same hole as the bigger cat. Newton answered: “I wasn’t smart enough”. It is easy to guess – why. When he was asked how he had managed to understand the principles the world, he has answered «with a constant thinking about them».

In 1691 Newton was invited to London to become a head of the Mint because of his knowledge of metallurgy and the mechanic. After the Civil war England was flooded with false money. A financial reform was necessary. The problem was to produce coins which could not have been forged easily. Disguised, Newton visited bars and taverns and gathered much information about the ways of forgery. The coinage was protected from forgery. The successful financial reform was one of the reasons which have defined economic prosperity of England in XVIII century. The last 30 years of his life Newton lived in London in the home of the niece. Then he was the head of the Royal society.

The most significant achievement of Newton was connected with the law of universal gravitation. Newton proved it with the help of mathematics. Three questions had preceded the discovery. Why do point masses fall to the Earth? The answer was given in antiquity: because point masses attract each other. Here is the second question: why does the Moon not fall to the Earth, but also does not go away? There was no answer. The third question had arisen shortly before Newton. The German scientist Kepler showed rotation of planets by the orbits in the form of ellipses. It was unclear why they have such a form. Many scientists thought about these riddles. At least four of them in the XVII century came to the same idea. There is a single force in the Universe, which moves all the objects: the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. The same force makes the objects fall on the ground and the planets rotate by ellipses. The force was called gravitation. Robert Hooke gave the mathematical formula to count it. But nobody could prove this formula with the help of mathematics. It remained only a supposition.

Once in 1683 Halley, Hooke and Wren were having a dinner and discussing the movement of planets. And Wren offered 40 shillings for fun to the person who would prove the law of gravitation. Hooke told, that he had already found the proof, but did not wish to tell it not to deprive the others a pleasure to make the same. As to Halley, he couldn’t stop thinking about the problem. Не went to Cambridge to discuss the theme with Newton. Newton told that he knew the proof of the law of gravitation and showed the ready book describing the system of the world. Halley was delighted. But Newton refused publishing his work. If not Halley “The Principles» might not have been published. Halley managed to persuade Newton publishing the book. But the new problem arose. After two first volumes had appeared, the physicist Robert Hooke declared, that it was he, who had informed Newton about the formula of the law. Hooke was offended not being mentioned in “The Principles». Newton answered: it was an easy thing to invent formulas. But it was difficult to prove them with mathematics. He was going not to mention Hooke or not to publish the 3 volume at all. Once more Halley managed persuading Newton. He mentioned the name of Hooke and thus his main work has been published.

So, the main merit of Newton wasn’t the concept of gravitation. It was the mathematical proof of the formula of the law. On the way of proving, Newton put forward some other very important ideas. He created the new language of mathematics, coined terms “weight” and “force”, formulated the laws of movement. All modern physics and technics are based on them. As for Hooke, modern historians of science recognize, that he could have informed Newton about the formula of the law and gave him a material for reflections. Newton did not wish to recognize it. For 35 years Hooke was a head of the Royal society. After his death Newton became his successor. And his first step in a new role was the destruction of all the papers and portraits of Hooke. Now the Royal society has portraits of all its chairmen, except the first one, Robert Hooke.

There is a well-known legend about an apple which had fallen before Newton and made him discover the law of gravitation. The legend says, that once Newton saw a falling apple in the garden and thought: “The same force which made the apple to fall stretches up to the Moon. It exists not only on Earth, but in the whole solar system”. Neither Newton, nor his contemporaries told this legend. For the first time it was told by French philosopher Voltaire. He visited England after Newton’s death, was impressed strongly by his works and told about them on the continent. The scholars do not exclude, that Newton himself knew nothing about the apple, and this legend was invented by Voltaire .

In mathematics Newton created the methods of differential and integral calculus which has become the language of modern science. In the nature almost all the processes develop by curves. The new Method of Newton and Leibniz allowed to describe natural processes with the help of mathematics. In physics Newton also discovered, that white light consisted of the other colors. It made possible to understand the chemical compound of stars. Newton was also the inventor of the reflecting telescope.

Newton died in 1727. The inscription on his tomb in Westminster Abby called his mind “almost divine”. The modern science is based on Newton’s ideas. But he wrote in the end of his life: “I do not know, what I can seem to the world, but I seem to myself only the boy playing on a shore, having a good time that sometimes I find a little stone more florid, than ordinarily one, or a beautiful cockleshell while the great ocean of true is spread before me not investigated”.