Prelude To Power: 1931 Michael Faraday Celebration

This black and white film from the late 1950s details the scientific researches of Michael Faraday undertaken at the Royal Institution, followed by (from 25:00 onwards) a presentation from William Henry Bragg on the life and work of Faraday.
This historical film explains the foundation of the Royal Institution, highlighting original objects from the Ri’s collection before entering the famous lecture theatre to look in on a schools lectures being given by Lawrence Bragg. Bragg and Bill Coats are seen demonstrating a Whimshurst machine and a Faraday cage and talking through the principles of electricity.
The film then moves into a restaging of Faraday's (played by Tony Thawnton) life and experimentation, showing him in his bookbinder’s workshop and then later undertaking his electrical researches at the Ri. The film, interspersed between reconstruction and animation, highlights the importance of magnets and Faraday’s theory of lines of force. The film explains and demonstrates in detail the work of Hans Christian Ørsted, Faraday’s development of the first electrical motor and the development of the electro-magnet.
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[@TechTins_Projects]

What a shame that we don't produce intelligent documentaries like this any more, that actually explain things in detail

[@chanakyasinha8046]

Yes, too much shame.

[@benkasminbullock]

Quanta Magazine's videos are not too bad.

[@prakashrajtanush6378]

100%

[@lidarman2]

With all the power of the internet, you can make one too. Get to it. I'll watch it.

[@RemiStardust]

I don't agree. There are fantastic documentaries out there. Modern graphics and powerful cameras add a lot of extra value!

[@DavidGorenPrivate]

There is a major thing missing in this beautiful video. The video shows only the actual experiments done by Faraday, which look trivial today but were indeed not trivial then since so many looked in this same direction and could not find results. What made the difference, and is lacking in this video, is Faraday's theoretical contribution, which I feel is no less critical than his experimental contribution, and the former led directly to the latter. Faraday was not using mathematics much, but he had a genius imagination of the kind Newton and Einstein had: Faraday could visualize the electric and magnetic fields in his mind's eye, and he did thousands of thought experiments before discovering his physical experiments. Faraday realized that the fields are independent entities and are the major players - not the charges, currents, or bar magnets. In my opinion, this transition from massive particles to fields and waves is as great as the best of what Newton ever did. Only Faraday's fields enabled electromagnetism, relativity, and quantum mechanics to be later discovered. James Clerk Maxwell read the writing of Faraday carefully and, as he says it himself: All I had to do was just to translate Faraday's insight into mathematics. This enabled Maxwell to discover the full and complete laws of electromagnetism and deduce the existence of electromagnetic waves and discover that visible light is an electromagnetic wave. Maxwell was the only one able to make this genius breakthrough since he internalized Faraday's insight which was so different than the understanding of other mathematicians of his time. In short, Faraday was a theoretical physicist as much as he was an experimental physicist. The last claim is not so apparent since he was not using mathematics. Still, his thinking was as deductive as mathematics is. Einstein is similar to Faraday in this respect since Einstein imagined relativity first and only then used elementary mathematics to describe his special relativity. With the same imagination and insight, Einstein discovered general relativity - not the so many better mathematicians who tried the same thing and failed. In my opinion, the genius imagination makes all significant breakthroughs in theoretical physics. Mathematics is no more than a language. Dr. David Goren

[@jo71992]

he is one of my ancestors I've recently found. His sister is one of my great grandmothers. Thank you for this. Very informative

[@yudhvirsingh9909]

U must be so proud of yourself

[@yudhvirsingh9909]

And ur ancestry

[@larslover6559]

Great upload. Michael Faraday was such an amazing soul.... Very encouraging for me to know that he also was a devout Christian.

[@robertcooper5604]

im intrigued to know why its very encouraging? have you watched the charles Darwin documentary? im not being antagonist I very much believe in faith. I still walk the streets where he was brought up, so you have to

[@robertcooper5604]

an

[@susilgunaratne4267]

Michael Faraday, the greatest experimental scientist in the 19th century. Electricity generation by mechanical means is his greatest contribution to the mankind. It was 1st single phase AC that he dicovered in 1831 and within 70 yrs it developed into our present day ubiquitous 3-Phase AC system by later the inventions mainly by the Dolivo Dobrovolsky, Steinmetz, Tesla ....

[@shahzadaayub]

It's easy to take all these genius discoveries for granted. But imagine if there was no Volta, no Faraday, no Maxwell, No Einstein ... the world we live in today would have been a different world and you wouldn't have the luxury to watch these videos on KZbin.

[@shahzadaayub]

@TULL FORIXhim, for sure.

[@stevetobias6508]

I really enjoyed this film, and learned a lot. And I'm an admirer of the Braggs, père et fils. I believe that the first 24 minutes (roughly) of this upload feature the son, Lawrence, in a film made in the fifties (notice references to atomic power). After that is a short film made in 1931, the centennary of Faraday's discovery of induction, and the presenter is the father, William. The son Lawrence in particular is remembered for his pioneering work in x-ray crystallography. There's a couple of great uploads about the Braggs in the context of this hugely important tool for scientific investigation (used to image the DNA helix by Rosalind Franklin).

[@nadmey9099]

Amazing. We owe these brilliant minds forever.

[@miro20106]

R.I.P. Michael Faraday (*1791-+1867)

[@gordonspond8223]

22:34 ... and almost 70 years later, we're still hoping for a breakthrough.

[@dcamron46]

Man, the quality of these types of videos has gone downhill, shows u don't need fancy technology to make a super interesting informative science video

[@medievalmusiclover]

Great. Rest in peace forever Mr.FARADAY. ❤

[@riteshmujbaile3378]

Thank you for bring the world in electricity.

[@duncpott]

So awesome! What a superb documentary, with such style, communicating this amazing history. Too bad physics degrees today just jump in with equations - as if their meaning was "intuitively obvious" - when in fact they were devised to explain these incredible observations. So glad I found this, thanks!

[@PacoOtis]

Excellent! Thanks so much for the video!! Every school should show this to the students.

[@RemiStardust]

Just think: This documentary was made before TV! People had to go to a film screening room (a movie theatre) to watch this.

[@hman0121]

Great 2 documentaries on the eminent physicist sir Michael Faraday. :)

[@hman0121]

@John Ashtone Yes, I realised some time after. I believe that was to do with the particular sect of Christianity Mr Faraday followed. Although, you could just call him sir as a sign of respect. :)

[@garrettkelleher7904]

An excellent production. Thank you for posting it Ri.

[@9430943732]

Thankyou so much for wonderful experiments of Micheal Faraday with details in a beautiful short film

[@kae4466]

thank you. i am a ham radio operator kf6uxj. when we took our tests we just recited answers in question pools . this gives background to the why. i have saved these for future reference .

Thank you so much Ri Archives. Greetings from Bimac Research Group at Universidad del Cauca, Colombia.

[@johnbattista9519]

Excellent.. thank you.

[@2788maroof]

Michael Faradey is God Gifted scientist....

[@AlexaFM-dd7nx]

I am a boy and I love Michael Faraday . Father of Modern World.

[@wisdomofscience7261]

Wohh.. Really fascinating.. Thank you so much Ri....

[@doncourtreporter]

Excellent content, and informative. Faraday is the genius who wrote the books with his hands which James Clerk Maxwell translated into the Greek equations for the world. They''re Maxwell's equations but Faraday discovered 95 percent of the material contained within them.

[@zack_120]

I have been wondering what is the differences and similarities of discoveries made by these two great men in the area of electromagnetism.

[@doncourtreporter]

@@zack_120 Maxwell took Faraday's books and drawings and translated them into equations and in doing so Maxwell expanded upon Faraday's work and proved Faraday was right and found that EM propigated at C, so that Faraday was right all along even though he could not express his ideas about "invisible light" with equations. Everyone else here can add to my memory.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video...👍

[@wisdom_wellness365]

Awesome!

[@PhiloMusix24]

Super freaking awesome

[@zack_120]

YES, we all recognize and remember the great contributions of Great Briton made to the advancement of the modern world !

[@NEWDAWNrealizingself]

MY ADMIRATION TO THE RI THAT THROUGH THIS DOCUMENTARY FILM RI STARTED TO RECORD ITS GLORIFIED HERITAGE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES . THANKS !

[@_N0_0ne]

Thank you

[@chanakyasinha8046]

I want to understand, how ammeter and galvanometer works in those days, on what principle?

[@jonahansen]

If Faraday and others had had a good understanding of conservation of energy, they would have been able to deduce that a steady magnetic field could not induce a continuing current in wire loops. In fact, the idea that a constant magnetic field could produce a constant current would allow the production of free energy and a perpetual motion machine - just hook up a motor to a wire loop, and put a magnet in the loop. Don't get me wrong - these guys were wicked smart and perseverant, and physics was really just getting started at that point! But a modern physicist could very quickly eliminate this possibility by thought alone.

[@christophersedlak1147]

thanks

[@amritpatel3794]

Fascinating story of genius People.

[@Call-me-Ishmael]

Can anyone identify the TV show at 21:18? Could that be Reg Varney??

[@tushar699]

Please don’t dislike this video.

[@zebratangozebra]

I disliked it just to bug you

[@i4ni969]

Wow

[@AdaptivePhenix]

What was the source of his electricity to perform these experiments?

[@adebayotobi3322]

Voltaic cells

[@dawntutorial6187]

🌏🏝SUCH A GREAT EXPERIMENTER THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN !🌏📓

[@rgaleny]

ADD RESONANCE TO THE QUEST FOR FUSION

[@MrTroywoo]

And that was 90 years ago.

[@iamshredder3587]

Don't forget, a devout Bible-believing Christian! Like all the greats of Modern Science.

[@larslover6559]

Yes, and lets not forget James Maxwell and Isaac Newton! They got amazing insight into the laws and nature of God's creation. Glory be to God who has saved, sanctified and blessed us in Christ Jesus!

[@ianmarshall9144]

bollocks

[@davidrobertson5700]

1931 it says in the title , are you sure you dont mean 1831 ?

[@adebayotobi3322]

1931 was the centenary celebration of Faraday's discovery.

[@Call-me-Ishmael]

No … look at the school kids. About 1960 I would say.

[@DonaldSleightholme]

i might have something revolutionary, Tritium radioluminescence phosphorus phosphates. solar technology, DC to AC power inverter and Walton Cockcroft... 🤔💡🤷‍♂️ #nobelprize

[@xxxorg]

PSYCHO IDIOT!! FUKUSHIMA IS REAL, REAL BAD BEAUTIFULGIRLBYDANA CHANNEL ON KZbin

[@kopynd1]

this lecture proves how thick I am, intelligent Victorians, how the modern world was made

[@TheDavidlloydjones]

Yoo-hoo! Hello, planet Earth? Just one thing, Earth peoples: all of this is happening before your Tesla guy was born.

[@lidarman2]

I happen to have a beaker of mercury. ;)

[@Sam-qm1io]

My God...I have never read such a fascinating post on KZbin before. You're the greatest.

[@deezynar]

Electricity is not produced by magnetism. Mechanical power is used to move a magnet within a coil of wire, and that induces an electrical charge to travel via a conductor. That transmitted power can be converted back into mechanical power at the other end.

[@gregiles908]

Not from 1931 when a 1950's car drives down the road.

[@kopynd1]

there would be a 50s car when its said 50s documentary, and second lecture 1931, you need lecture on reading or glasses

[@moatsimesam3779]

stop spreading wrong info

[@dcamron46]

What about Franklin? Freaking Brits still bitter about the revolution to admit Franklin was the real father of electricity :P

[@zack_120]

Tell more details about the matter. The world always want to know the truth.

[@larslover6559]

They all saw bits and pieces of the puzzle of the amazing nature of electricity, each contributing their parts...

[@MehmetAslan-gs2dp]

Bu görüntüdeki adam dublörmü yoksa gerçek faradaymı ?🙄

[@aafreensiddique4161]

Wow