Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics

Science writers Forbes (Imitation of Life) and Mahon (The Man Who Changed Everything) explore the lives of ground-breaking physicists Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell in this work that blends science history and lively biography. The authors describe how Faraday, a blacksmith’s son, abandoned a promising career as a bookbinder in 1813 to study the young science of electricity. Faraday’s attention to detail and skill as a “compulsive experimenter” led to the first electric motor, the first generator, and the idea that electricity and magnetism travel as waves, like sound and light. His work supported the concept of fields, but his lack of mathematical ability meant few took him seriously. Then Maxwell, a young professor from Marischal College in Aberdeen, Scotland, developed the math to back up Faraday’s ideas. A prodigy with a “quicksilver mind” prone to expressing his feelings through verse, Maxwell was fascinated with Faraday’s fields. Through Maxwell, these fields became a means of storing electromagnetic energy and transmitting forces to cause magnetic attraction and repulsion. Accessible writing and a feel for character make this an interesting look at two scientists whose work defined an era and set the course for modern physics. (Mar.)