Michael Faraday was a chemist and Physicist from England. He was born in 1791 in the small town near London called Newington Butts. Not much is known about his early life, except that he was an apprentice for a book binder. This is the way the young Michael started to read. He started to read many books on chemistry, and became an omnivorous reader. His then attended his first lecture at the City Philosophical Society, which was a group of young men interested in science. He relieved his basic education in science there. .
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Michael was then introduced to the ponders of Humphrey Davy, who may be the largest influence on Michael. In 1892 Davy, due to a lab explosion, was temporarily blinded. Michael was then referred to Davy as amanuensis, where he took the position of a laboratory assistant. Davy decided to take an "extended vacation" around the Continent, and asked Michael to accompany him. There he learned about almost every science under the sun.
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Michael then returned to England in 1815, and started going into the field of chemistry. He then published a paper called "Analysis of a Caustic Lime of Tuscany". His other papers were on the condensation of gases, limits of vaporaztion and optical deceptions. In 1820 he came up with the first known compounds of chlorine and carbon, by the substitution of chlorine for hydrogen in "olefiant gas", or modern ethylene. This was the first substitution reaction, he also was the first to isolate benzene.
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Most consider his greatest works to be the series of Experimental Researches on Electricity, which was published over a period of 40 years in Philosophical Transactions. In these works he described his many discoveries, such as electromagnetic induction, the laws of electrolysis, and the rotation of polarized light by magnetism. .
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Electromagnetic induction was found when Michael found that moving a magnet through a coil of a copper wire caused an electric current to flow into the wire.
