Michael Faraday Essay

Michael Faraday is a science hero, who made remarkable contribution to the field of electrical engineering as a result of his studies on the direct current and electromagnetic fields. Michael Faraday is a British physicist and chemist who made major discoveries of electromagnetic induction in addition to the laws of electrolysis. Even though electromagnetic filed are everywhere in the environment they are invisible to the naked eye. The biggest invention made by Michael Faraday was the invention of the electric motor. This paper through qualitative analysis of published work and legitimate website sources is going to look at the contributions of Michael faraday to the field of electrical engineering. Introduction Direct current can be described as the continuous flow of electrons from a region of negative charges through a conducting material such as a metallic object to a region of positive charges (Herman and Loper, 2006). A direct current circuit is required in order to allow electrons to flow in an uninterrupted manner. Direct current circuit mainly consists of a wire conducting electrons from the negative terminal to a positive terminal and a source of electric energy (Herman and Loper, 2006). The flow of electrons in a direct current circuit is similar to the flow of water through a hose. The direction of current in a direct current circuit is opposite to the flow of electrons. Electrochemical or voltaic cells are used to produce direct current (Herman and Loper, 2006). Electromagnetic fields on the other hand, are produced when charged particles, especially electrons, are accelerated. All charged particles in motion produce electromagnetic fields. The first discovery of electromagnetic fields was done in the 19th century. This was after physicists realized that sparks could be reproduced at a distance without necessarily connecting them to the source with a metallic wire (Thompson, 2005).. As a result scientists came to a conclusion that it was possible to communicate with people far away without wires. Electromagnetic fields are mainly produced by alternating current in electrical conductors. Michael Faraday made tremendous contribution to the field of electoral engineering as far as direct current and electromagnetic fields are concerned. Michael Faraday Michael Faraday, the discoverer of diamagnetism, magneto-optical effect, electro-magnetic induction, electromagnetic rotation, was born on 1791 in southern London (Russell, 2000). He was initially a bookbinder in Britain, who developed interest in electricity, chemical and physical works of the time. He first became an assistant in Davy’s Lab before moving out to conduct his own experiments. His work at Davy’s lab mainly involved carrying out various chemical experiments. As a result of carrying out many chemical experiments, Faraday discovered two new chlorides of carbon and also liquefied chlorine and other gases (Thompson, 2005). In 1821, as states by Thompson (2005), Faraday wrote an article on current views concerning electricity and magnetism. In 1825, he isolated benzene. Faraday continued working on his ideas concerning electricity. He came up with a novel theory of electro-chemical action in 1833 after coining many of the words associated with electricity such as electrode, cathode, ion, and anode among many others. In the late 1830s Faraday was working on his ideas concerning electric induction and static electricity. He finally came to reject the conventional perception that electricity was an imponderable fluid. Rather, Faraday suggested that electricity was specific form of force present in matter flowing from one particle to another (Russell, 2000). Gladstone (2010) states that during one of his experiments Faraday discovered that a suspended magnet would revolve around a current bearing wire; an aspect that made him to propose that magnetism was a circular force. Later on Faraday discovered magnetic-optical rotation. Despite being mathematically illiterate, Faraday’s contribution to the field of electrical engineering remains significant. His contributions to electricity were based purely on experiment. His work however, resulted in deep mathematical theories concerning magnetism and electricity (Gladstone, 2010). The main belief that guided Faraday’s interest into electricity and electrolysis research was that electricity is one of the numerous manifestations of the integrated forces of nature such as heat, light, chemical affinity and magnetism. This perception led him to the field of electromagnetism (Thompson, 2005). Oersted, another great physicist of the time had converted electric current into magnetic force; Faraday was determined to reverse the process so as to produce electricity from magnetic force. Orsted had shown that electricity had the capacity to create a magnet field around a coil. Faraday developed a second coil that would intercept and convert the magnetic field back to electric current (Gladstone, 2010). Faraday made a clear demonstration of the phenomenon of electromagnetism through a series of experiments. It was in 1831 when Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction the principle behind electric generator and electric transformer (Gladstone, 2010). He expressed the induced electric current in terms of the number of lines of force that the wire cut through. This discovery made it easy for the transformation of electricity from a curiosity state to a novel and powerful technology. After Faraday discovered that electricity could be generated by rotating a magnet inside a coil made of metallic wire, he was able to create the first electric motor. Later on he built a transformer and a generator. In 1857 he devised the laws of chemical electrodeposition of metals from solutions (Russell, 2000). He also formulated the second law of electrolysis based on the 1807 perception that certain metals could be precipitated by an electric current from their compounds, which states that â€Å"the amounts of objects that are equivalent to each other in their ordinary chemical characteristics possess equal quantities of electricity naturally linked to them. Faraday also invented the voltmeter, the gadget that measures electric charge. Development of a voltmeter was the first step towards the standardization of electrical quantities. His contribution to the development of a field describing electric and magnetic forces in 1845 was one of the most important contributions of Faraday in physics (Gladstone, 2010). Faraday discovered that intense magnetic filed has the capacity to rotate the plane of a polarized light. This concept has been extensively made use of in elucidation of molecular structure in addition to providing significant information concerning galactic magnetic fields. Faraday first proposed that current generates an electric tension that produces an electronic state, or polarization of molecules and plays a major role of transmitting the electric force. The work of Faraday laid a strong foundation of the classical electromagnetic field theory, which was later developed by J. C. Maxwell (Thompson, 2005). Conclusion It can therefore be concluded that Michael Faraday is a science hero, who made remarkable contribution to the field of electrical engineering as a result of his studies on the direct current and electromagnetic fields. Direct current is the continuous flow of electrons from a region of negative charges through a conducting material such as a metallic object to a region of positive charges. Electromagnetic fields, on the other hand, are produced when charged particles, especially electrons, are accelerated. Faraday came up with a novel theory of electro-chemical action after coining many of the words associated with electricity such as electrode, cathode, ion, and anode. Faraday discovered that a suspended magnet would revolve around a current bearing wire, an aspect that made him to propose that magnetism was a circular force. Faraday also discovered electromagnetic induction the principle behind electric generator and electric transformer. After Faraday discovered that electricity could be generated by rotating a magnet inside a coil made of metallic wire, he was able to create the first electric motor. Later on he built a transformer and a generator. Faraday discovered that intense magnetic field has the capacity to rotate the plane of a polarized light. This concept has been extensively made use of in elucidation of molecular structure in addition to providing significant information concerning galactic magnetic fields. Reference: Gladstone, J. , (2010). Michael Faraday, ISBN 1445576198: READ BOOKS Herman, S. , and Loper O. , (edn 7), (2006). Direct current fundamentals, ISBN 1418000450: Thomson Delmar Learning Russell, C. , (2000). Michael Faraday: physics and faith, ISBN 0195117638 Oxford University Press US Thompson, S. , (2005). Michael Faraday His Life and Work, ISBN 1417970367: Kessinger Publishing