{"id":7441,"date":"2013-10-19T12:08:24","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T11:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/blog\/?p=944"},"modified":"2025-01-08T16:39:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T16:39:53","slug":"michael-faraday-father-first-electric-motor-1791-1867","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/blog\/michael-faraday-father-first-electric-motor-1791-1867\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Faraday, Father of the First Electric Motor (1791-1867)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>The British physicist and chemist is considered to be the founding father of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.<\/h2>\n<p>Faraday was from a humble family which was unable to pay the costs of his higher education. However, between the ages of 14 and 21, he <strong>educated himself <\/strong>in several scientific disciplines, reading whatever specialist books he could find during his apprenticeship as a bookbinder in London. <strong>When he was 22<\/strong> years old, <strong>after having attended lectures given by the chemist Humphry Davy<\/strong>, <strong>he was appointed as chemical assistant at the Royal Institution<\/strong> in London. This job gave him the opportunity to travel to several European countries with his mentor and to <strong>meet other famous scientists<\/strong> as well as to <strong>take part in experiments<\/strong> carried out by his colleagues at the Royal Institution.<\/p>\n<p>His work was <strong>fundamental in the development of electricity<\/strong> since he discovered that a time-varying magnetic flux through a loop of wire produced voltage.<\/p>\n<p>Faraday <strong>laid the groundwork for the theory of electromagnetism<\/strong>, which James Clerk Maxwell (to whom we\u2019ll devote the next article in the blog section \u201cScientists Who Changed the World\u201d) was later able to develop. This theory made possible<strong> the coming into being of the electrical industry<\/strong>. The <strong>Professor<\/strong> of Didactics of Experimental Sciences at the University of Seville, Spain, <strong>Fernando Rivero<\/strong> Garrayo <strong>explains<\/strong>, \u201cWithout the development of electromagnetism and its technical applications, we would still be using candles or oil lamps for light, factories would powered by water mills or windmills, and hardly any of the present-day industries \u2013 electrochemical, automobile, electronics \u2013 would exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>1821<\/strong>, although the Danish chemist <strong>Hans Christian \u00d8rsted<\/strong> had already discovered electromagnetism by then, Faraday constructed two devices to produce what he then called \u201c<strong><i>electromagnetic rotation<\/i><\/strong>\u201d and, using this name as his title, he published the results of his work. This, in fact, <strong>describes the principle of what we now know as the electric motor<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>En<\/strong> <strong>1831<\/strong> he <strong>discovered <\/strong><strong>electromagnetic induction<\/strong>, which led to the discovery of <strong>generators<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>He discovered <strong>the laws of electrolysis<\/strong>, as a result of which he is deemed to be the true founder of electromagnetism and electrochemistry.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Faraday cage<\/strong> is defined in the web page of the <strong>Technical University of Madrid<\/strong> as follows: \u201cA Faraday cage is a <strong>mental enclosure blocking external static electric fields<\/strong>. [\u2026] It is used as protection against electric charges since there is no electric field in the cage\u2019s interior. [\u2026] <strong>Many devices that we use in everyday life are equipped <\/strong>with a Faraday cage, for example <strong>microwave ovens<\/strong>, <strong>scanners<\/strong>, <strong>cables<\/strong>, and so on. Other devices, which do not incorporate a Faraday cage, act as such. These include <strong>lifts<\/strong>, <strong>cars<\/strong> and <strong>aeroplanes<\/strong>. This is why it is recommended that people should remain inside their car when caught in an electric storm: its metal bodywork acts as if it were a Faraday cage.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Faraday was the first to succeed in <strong>liquefying several gases<\/strong>: carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen bromide and chlorine.<\/li>\n<li>He discovered <strong>benzene<\/strong> (hydrocarbon) in 1825 while trying to resolve a combustion problem with the gas lighting in London.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-940\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/1_michael-faraday-father-first-electric-motor-1791-1867.jpg\" alt=\"Faraday\" width=\"536\" height=\"260\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>To a great extent, we owe concepts like <strong><i>electrode<\/i><\/strong>, <strong><i>cathode<\/i><\/strong> and <strong><i>ion<\/i><\/strong> to Faraday.<\/p>\n<p>In recognition of his contributions, the name <strong>faraday<\/strong> was first given to the <strong>unit of electrical charge<\/strong> and, subsequently, the <strong>unit of electrical capacitance<\/strong> was called the <strong>farad<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Faraday <strong>wrote a <i>Diary<\/i><\/strong> in which he systematically and meticulously noted all his ideas, observations, theoretical deductions and the results of his laboratory work. <strong>It is a good indication of the methodical structure of his thought<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In 1826 <strong>he organised a series of talks<\/strong> on science <strong>in the Royal Institution<\/strong>, which were held on Friday afternoons. They are <strong>still being held today<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In 1825 he was appointed <strong>director of the laboratory at the Royal Institution<\/strong> and, in 1833, he <strong>replaced his teacher<\/strong>, Humphry Davy, as <strong>Fullerian Professor of Chemistry<\/strong>, also in the Royal Institution.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to his scientific readings, Faraday <strong>read books to stimulate his imagination<\/strong>, for example <i>One Thousand and One Nights<\/i>, and others that <strong>would teach him to think<\/strong>, such as Isaac Watts\u2019 <i>The Improvement of the Mind<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>According to Wikipedia, Queen Victoria granted him a Grace and Favour Home, where he was to die nine years after going to live there.<\/p>\n<h3>The Relationship between Electromagnetic Induction and Generators<\/h3>\n<p>Thanks to the discovery of <strong>electromagnetic induction<\/strong> it has been possible to construct <strong>power units <\/strong>(<strong>alternators<\/strong>) and, as a result of that, <strong>generators<\/strong>. <strong>The generator consists of <\/strong>an <strong>internal combustion engine<\/strong>, which <strong>supplies mechanical energy<\/strong>, and <strong>an alternator<\/strong>, which <strong>converts this mechanical energy into electrical energy <\/strong>by means of processes of <strong>electromagnetic induction.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>UPM (Technical University of Madrid).<br \/>\nWikipedia<br \/>\nFor further detailed information:<br \/>\nFaraday, by Miguel S\u00e1nchez Ruiz (Department of Applied Physics III. Complutense University of Madrid). In Spanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to the discovery of electromagnetic induction it has been possible to construct power units (alternators) and, as a result of that, generators. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,33],"tags":[],"categorias-smart-power-":[],"paises-":[],"class_list":["post-7441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scientists-who-have-changed-and-who-will-change-the-world","category-ingles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7441"},{"taxonomy":"categorias-smart-power-","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categorias-smart-power-?post=7441"},{"taxonomy":"paises-","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inmesol.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paises-?post=7441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}