Michael Faraday, His Life and Work

by Silvanus P. Thompson

Yet another reminiscence is to be found in the Memorials of Joseph Henry. It relates, probably, to the date of 1837, when Henry visited Europe.

Henry loved to dwell on the hours that he and Bache had spent in Faraday’s society. I shall never forget Henry’s account of his visit to King’s College, London, where Faraday, Wheatstone, Daniell, and he had met to try and evolve the electric spark from the thermopile. Each in turn attempted it and failed. Then came Henry’s turn. He succeeded, calling in the aid of his discovery of the effect of a long interpolar wire wrapped around a piece of soft iron. Faraday became as wild as a boy, and, jumping up, shouted: “Hurrah for the Yankee experiment!”

The following memorandum was found on a slip of paper in Faraday’s “research drawer”:—

THE FOUR DEGREES.

The discoverer of a fact.

The reconciling of it to known principles.

Discovery of a fact not reconcilable.

He who refers all to still more general principles.

M.F.

FREEDOM OF SPECULATION.