Introduction: Faraday Rediscovered

Abstract

Michael Faraday straddled the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Born in a world where light was particulate, as a young man he saw it turn into a wave in a solid aether. He himself laid the foundations of aetherless electromagnetic radiation. Born in a world where magnetism was peculiar to a few metals, he left it as a universal phenomenon. Born in a world where electricity was a fluid substance and a public spectacle, he left it as a species of action, described mathematically by Maxwell, and well on the way to being a public utility. Who can imagine what life would be like without the technological applications of his discoveries?