Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) was an English scientist whose experiments laid the foundations of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. The son of a blacksmith, apprenticed to a bookbinder, he educated himself from the books he bound and in 1813 became assistant to Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution, where he spent the rest of his career. He discovered electromagnetic rotation, benzene, electromagnetic induction, the laws of electrolysis, the magneto-optical effect and diamagnetism, introduced the idea of lines of force, and invented the Faraday cage. His Experimental Researches in Electricity record this work in numbered paragraphs. A member of the small Sandemanian sect, he refused a knighthood.