2.7 Great Scientists

Michael Faraday was born into a poverty-stricken family in a dirty London suburb. He suffered from a severe speech defect, which made other children laugh at him. His teachers did not help him either, and when he was twelve, his mother was forced to take him out of school, putting an end to his formal education.

• Reading became his obsession: This means reading took over his mind completely. He developed an intense and continuous desire to read books all the time, staying up all night to do so.
• Electricity became a lifelong fascination: This means the subject of electricity captured his deep interest and extreme curiosity, and this strong attraction lasted for the rest of his life.

Faraday's friend probably knew about his extreme poverty and his immense obsession with science and electricity. He gave him the free ticket to help him learn from a renowned chemist, as Faraday could never have afforded the ticket on his own.

The subject of Humphry Davy's lecture was the 'mysterious force of electric fluid' (chemicals and electrical lighting).

Faraday was completely spellbound by the lecture and kept taking comprehensive notes, forgetting even to applaud with the rest of the crowd. He bound his notes into a book to gift to Davy. Inspired by him, Faraday decided he didn't just want to sell books, but wanted to be a great scientist good enough to write his own, making Davy his role model.

A chemical explosion happened inside Davy's lab, temporarily blinding him. He urgently needed an assistant with an excellent memory to help him, which reminded him of Faraday, and he decided to hire him.

No, Davy was not fair in his treatment. He dismissed Faraday's aspirations because of his social status, made him clean labs, and later grew extremely jealous of Faraday's success. He even gave him an impossible task with Bavarian glass just to keep him out of his way.

Faraday responded with a relentless and never-give-up attitude. He respected Davy, worked day and night to learn his experiments, and accepted even the impossible assignments without complaining.

When an electric current is applied to a wire, it causes that wire to behave like a magnet.

• Faraday was a good pupil: He respected his teacher, worked day and night to learn all of Davy's experiments, and sincerely tried to accomplish even the impossible tasks assigned to him by Davy.
• Davy was not a good mentor: Instead of being happy for his pupil's great success, Davy became extremely jealous of Faraday and tried to sabotage his career by giving him an impossible task just to keep him out of the way.

The examples given for the use of the induction motor are: fans, air conditioning, sewing machines, power tools, cars, trains, and aeroplane engines.

To "reverse engineer" something means to take a product or device apart and study it very carefully in order to discover exactly how it was made or how it works, usually to recreate it.

The core idea behind an electrical generator is that if you move a magnet, it can produce an electrical current. Thus, continuous mechanical motion can be converted into electricity.

Faraday's drawings were not accepted because he lacked formal education and did not know advanced mathematics, so he was unable to explain his drawings in the form of mathematical equations.

No, it does not mean they were wrong. His concepts were entirely correct, and his ideas were later translated into a famous set of equations by the physicist James Maxwell.

Gadgets/Instruments mentioned: Light bulb, induction motor, fans, air conditioning, sewing machines, photographs (cameras), power tools, cars, trains, aeroplane engines, telescopes, microscopes, electrical generator, dynamos.