The referees’ assessment of Faraday’s electromagnetic induction paper of 1831

Abstract

Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction in August 1831 has been recognized as one of his great achievements, as well as a discovery of immense importance in understanding electromagnetism. John Tyndall, one of Faraday’s early biographers, surmised that ‘this discovery of magneto-electricity is the greatest experimental result ever obtained by an investigator. It is the Mont Blanc of Faraday’s own achievements.’ Thomas Martin, the editor of Faraday’s laboratory notes, remarked that Faraday’s discovery of induction, ‘was one of the most important experiments in the history of physical science . . .’ The phenomenon Faraday had demonstrated was the generation of an electric current (‘electricity in motion’) in a wire forming a closed circuit by the change of the current in an adjacent wire as well as by the wire either being in the presence of a changing magnetic force or moving through a region of magnetic force. The effect provided the anticipated converse of Oersted’s demonstration in 1820 that an electric current produced a magnetic force. The importance of the phenomenon in the development of electromagnetism may be seen in the pivotal role it played in Maxwell’s dynamical approach to electromagnetism.