A Life of Discovery: Michael Faraday, Giant of the Scientific Revolution - Hardcover

Hamilton, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400060168 ISBN 13: 9781400060160

Publisher: Random House, 2004

Synopsis

In a world of darkness perched on the edge of discovery, Michael Faraday lit up the world of science, contributed to the Industrial Revolution, and changed the lives of everyone on Earth. Now a superb new biography illuminates the life of this amazing, reclusive, deeply contradictory man.

Born in 1791, Faraday was the son of a blacksmith with a thin education, yet he was gifted with a rare intelligence and intuition. He was a devout member of a small Christian sect that believed in the Bible’s literal word, yet he was open to all that humankind could invent from earthly knowledge. He was ambitious and savvy about spreading news of his work, yet he patented nothing and received no personal gain. In short, Faraday personified all the paradoxes of the early nineteenth century, a landscape in which class, faith, and desire clashed.

As apprentice to the esteemed Humphrey Davy of the Royal Institution, he helped discover the miner’s safety lamp, which revolutionized the search for and accumulation of coal, then went on to make a landmark study of induction, the connection between electricity and magnetism, and the idea of the electromagnetic field. From electric motors to precision-made eyeglass lenses to steel razors to liquid chlorine, his inventions–often designed with self-created instruments–have become staples of civilized society, the “roots of modern life.”

While rising in society, Faraday steered clear of politics and the seamy machinations of the material world, staying obedient to a higher authority. Though disdainful of “useless passion” and devoted to his wife, he found a confidante in the bright, liberated, and flirtatious daughter of Lord Byron. Trying to reconcile his severe religion and his demanding work, he eventually suffered a mental collapse.

An acclaimed biographer of artists, James Hamilton now captures the entire fascinating story of this individual and his era. A Life of Discovery is the definitive account of a remarkable man who merged intuition and logic, prayer and deduction.

About this title

About the Author:

JAMES HAMILTON is University Curator at the University of Birmingham, U.K., and Honorary Research Fellow at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham. He was Alistair Horne Fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, 1998—1999, and is the author of Turner: A Life. He lives near Oxford, England.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* When his experiments went explosively awry, Michael Faraday repeatedly found his eyes filled with glass and his own blood. But a perceptive biographer allows readers to see much more than shattered laboratory equipment through eyes eventually famous for penetrating the mysteries of electricity. Indeed, Hamilton invites readers to see those contours of Faraday's life often neglected by biographers narrowly focused on his electrical research. We see, for instance, how, when shielded from public scrutiny, the mature genius but still straitlaced man allowed himself remarkable intimacy in correspondence with a free-spirited female mathematician. Even in turning to Faraday's acclaimed science, Hamilton highlights the nonscientific, exploring the piquant personalities of the mentors and collaborators who helped Faraday on his way and tracing the remarkably artistic metaphors Faraday employed in explaining his breakthroughs. And alongside a lucid scientific account of how Faraday's daring mind united wires and magnets in the world's first generator, Hamilton offers an acute psychological analysis of the peculiar fissures dividing that mind. Readers thus join Hamilton in pondering the curious schizophrenia that allowed Faraday to crusade for educational reform with poise but still left him insecure and self-abasing when addressing his own Protestant community on religious issues. A complete portrait, restoring full humanity to a scientific icon. Bryce Christensen
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About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1400060168
• ISBN 13: 9781400060160
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 465