MICHAEL FARADAY
The inventor of electromagnetic induction,
diamagnetism and electrolysis.
Michael Faraday had no formal education in science and worked
in a London bookshop. In fact, he was born into a family (in 1871)
that was so poor that he had no money to pay for his education
and instead, at the age of 14, he took up a position as an
apprentice as book-binder at a local shop. It was at this shop, that
he started reading some of the books on science that he was
binding. Fascinated with the subjects, he started attending
lectures by Humphrey Davy, an eminent chemist, and
subsequently sent Davy a 300-page document that contained all
the notes that Faraday had made from the lectures. Later, on 1st
March 1813, Davy appointed Faraday as the Chemical Assistant
at the Royal Institution on 1 March 1813.
Faraday went on to discover, among many other things,
electromagnetic induction, benzene, the shape of magnetic fields
and metallic nano-particles. Today, his legacy lives on as one of
the greatest scientists the world has ever seen.
8