Five Equations That Changed the World by Michael Guillen

Author:Michael Guillen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hyperion

VICI

On February 29, 1812, Faraday leapt up the stone steps and rushed through the heavy doors of London’s Royal Institution. Symbolically, it was like the storming of Bastille, except it was Faraday who would lose his head, not any of the noblemen who dwelt within.

This was the evening for which he had been waiting so long. For years, he had fantasized about this palace of science. And now, as he gawked and walked his way through the opulent antechamber and into the auditorium, Faraday nearly swooned at the reality of it all.

Once seated, the young man opened his notebook and began drawing and describing the elegant room and the gadget-filled stage in front of him: “literary and scientific, practical and theoretical, blue-stockings and women of fashion, old and young, all crowded—eagerly crowded—the lecture-room.”

The event was scheduled to start at eight o’clock, and at that moment precisely, all eyes turned to watch the tall, handsome lecturer stride onto the dais. Humphry Davy was not a king, but he bore himself like one. To many—not just to the young bookbinder applauding adoringly from his seat in the center section—he was one of the greatest natural philosophers of his day.

When the applause quieted down, Davy proceeded to dazzle the gallery with his legendary talents and fantastical demonstrations. Chemicals glowed, electricity flowed, and throughout it all, Faraday himself glowed, and the ink from his pen flowed; by the time it was over, the eager young man had filled up ninety-six pages of notes and illustrations.

For the attendees, it was the end of a memorable evening, made all the more so by rumors that this was to be Davy’s final series of lectures. For the twenty-year-old Faraday, however, it was to be the beginning of a revolutionary scientific career, one that ultimately would lead to the dethronement of the Royal Institution’s vaunted liege.

As the ecstatic young Faraday walked home, his lighthearted mood gradually was overcome by the surrounding darkness. His apprenticeship would expire in only eight months, he thought glumly, at which point he was committed to work as a journeyman for the French bookbinder Henri de la Roche. The wages would be enough to support him and his widowed mother, but the job itself would not make him happy.

That evening, Faraday had come within arm’s length of his dream, the closest he ever had gotten to it; now, more than anything, he wanted to grab hold of it. But how could someone as insignificant as he seize Davy’s attention?

During the next several months, while the increasingly anxious young man attended Davy’s three remaining lectures, an idea came to him. He would recopy his lecture notes and make them into a book so exquisite, Davy would be sure to notice it—and him. His book of notes from Tatum’s lectures had gotten him into the Royal Institution, Faraday reasoned; perhaps this one would get him employed there.

No sooner had he congratulated himself for having come up with such a brilliant game plan, however, than a public

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