CAIRO: Is it possible to like physics without the complicated mathematics? Well, other than the fact that Albert Einstein formulated his theory of Special Relativity using only basic high school algebra, the life of Michael Faraday says that it s not only possible but that you could be a physics giant with just deep physical insights without even mastering trigonometry.
Having left school when he was merely 13 to work as a bookbinder, Faraday went on to become the most brilliant scientist two centuries ago and his legacy lives on to our day. Earlier this week the American University in Cairo invited esteemed chemist and science communicator Sir John Meurig Thomas to speak of Faraday’s life and times.
Sir Thomas lecture definitely had a historic feel to it. Although the old professor s enthusiastic tone and early 20th century lecturing style at times felt alienating, at other times the audience felt they were treated to one of the lectures that Faraday himself used to give.
Faraday was the first to establish the link between electricity and magnetism. One simple demonstration of this link is that when a magnet is moved nearer to a coil of wire, an electric current is generated in the wire. This simple mechanism called electromagnetic induction is how Egypt s High Dam uses the motion of water to generate electricity and also how most of the world gets its electricity today. This unification of electricity and magnetism into what, from the time on, has been known as electromagnetism came by with the help of one Sir James Clark Maxwell, whose theory had the ubiquitous result that a wave made of electromagnetic fields would travel at exactly the speed of light.
Consequently, he concluded that light is nothing but electromagnetic waves, which is now one of the unquestioned pillars of physics without which any wireless communication such as broadcasting and mobile phones would not have been possible.
“Newton, Maxwell, and Faraday. Young Albert Einstein had the portraits of these three gentleman on the walls of his study, said Sir Thomas. Later, in his own theory (General Relativity), Einstein brought together aspects of Faraday s and Maxwell s electromagnetism and of Newton s gravity.
For example, he discovered that, just like electric and magnetic effects, gravitational effects are not instantaneous but rather propagate at the speed of light. So if the sun evaporates right this second, no one in earth will know about it for eight whole minutes which is the time it takes light and gravity to reach us from the sun.
Physicists today are still chasing after the same dream of unification which Einstein and many others after him couldn t complete: unifying electromagnetism and gravity with the two remaining forces of nature which manifest themselves inside atomic nuclei: fairly creatively called the strong and weak nuclear forces.
Dreams of unification aside, Faraday the lover and the showman were two other interesting sides of Sir Thomas detailed expose of the genius and his life. Because of his world-famous lecture series and science demonstrations, the man was considered the star of London in 1826.
Faraday once imprisoned himself in an iron cage which was then charged with a huge amount of electricity to demonstrate his discovery that electric charge tend to stay on the outside surface of any object which can conduct electricity. Incidentally, this is why when a lightening bolt hits an airplane, the passengers inside are not affected.
When it comes to his romantic affairs, the language Faraday and his mistresses used simply stood out. But it is so different from today s language that the audience s awe was mixed with a little feeling of peculiarity. Sir Thomas shared an undoubtedly English-humored letter which Faraday sent to Mary Somerville that started with: I no longer can deny myself the pleasure of answering your letters.
Somerville once referred to herself as the pillow of his [Faraday s] mind. His other lover, Ada Countess of Lovelace (brilliant mathematician and the first computer programmer), once asked him to be his bride in science.
Other than his discoveries and their invaluable applications, what remains with us from Faraday s genius is his beautiful science writing skills. Today, Japan s high school students still read the 87th edition of his masterpiece Chemical History of a Candle.
Check out Sir Thomas book: Michael Faraday and the Royal Institution: The Genius of Man and Place.
