PBS | Einstein's Big Idea | Michael Faraday - Part 2

Michael Faraday was someone who, like Einstein, thought in terms of pictures. Faraday was different from anybody else. He had a flair for understanding his experiments, for understanding what was really going on inside them. By methodically placing a compass all around an electrified wire, Faraday started to notice a pattern. What everyone else at the time had been taught was that forces travel in straight lines. Faraday was different. Faraday imagined that invisible lines of force flowed around an electric wire. And then he imagined that a magnet had similar lines emerging from it, and that those lines would get caught up in this flow. It was a bit like a flag in the wind. But Faraday's great leap of the imagination was to turn this experiment on its head. Instead of an electrified wire moving a compass, he wondered if he could get a static magnet to move a dangling wire. I've never seen you like this, Faraday. You look like a happy child. I'm shaking, Newman. Underneath, I'm shaking. You see, John? You see? Yes. This is the experiment of the century. It's the invention of the electric motor. Scale up the magnets and the wires, make them really big, attach heavy weights to them, and they'll be dragged along. But almost more importantly, he's inventing a new kind of physics here. Although he didn't realize it at the time, Faraday had also just demonstrated the overarching principle of energy. The chemicals in the battery had been transformed into electricity in the wire, which had combined with the magnet to produce motion. Behind all these various forces, there was a common energy. A couple of months earlier, Davy had been elected president of the Royal Society, which was the elite body of English science. But then he saw this great discovery published in the Quarterly Journal of Science. I don't know if he was envious, but he certainly saw this young man who had been his assistant, this mere blacksmith's son, had come up with one of the greatest discoveries of the Victorian era. Davy accuses Faraday of plagiarizing similar work from another imminent British scientist, William Wollaston. So, Faraday, what does Wollaston make of all this? He's written to me and assures me that he's taken no offense. And he acknowledges that what I published was entirely my own work. Right, right. Davy is just being an ass. But will Davy now retract his allegation? Sadly, no. In fact, he's still vehemently opposed to you being elected a member of the Society. Really? And what do you think? Faraday, my dear boy, you have my vote. Oh, mine? I believe you even have Wollaston's. Oh, what a mess. Well, no matter. No matter. It's the science that counts. So tell me, how does this wire of yours spin round its magnet? What mysterious forces are at play? There seems to be an electromagnetic interaction. In my mind, I see a swerving array of lines of force spinning out of the electrified wire, like a spiralling web. But invisible lines of force? It's all a bit vague, isn't it? Faraday, might I have a word in private? Certainly. Listen, Faraday, let's stop this nonsense. I want you to take down your ballot paper from the notice board. Sir Humphrey, I see no reason to take it down. My friends have proposed me. It is they who put the paper up. I will not take it down. Good day. Faraday was elected to the Royal Society. Davy died five years later, a victim of his penchant for laughing gas. In time, Faraday's world of invisible forces would lead to a whole new understanding of energy. He'd started what Einstein would later call the Great Revolution.