"AMONG EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHERS FARADAY HOLDS… THE FOREMOST PLACE": PART I OF PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS FOR 1832, CONTAINING FARADAY’S FIRST TWO LANDMARK PAPERS ON ELECTRICAL INDUCTION
FARADAY, Michael. "Experimental Researches in Electricty" and "The Bakerian Lecture—Experimental Researches in Electricity—Second Series." IN: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. For the Year MDCCCXXXII. Part I. London: Richard Taylor, 1832. Quarto, modern half navy morocco gilt, raised bands, red morocco spine label, marbled boards, uncut and partially unopened.
Scarce first edition—preceding their appearance in the first collected edition by seven years—of Faraday’s first two groundbreaking papers in electrical research, illustrated with two engraved plates.
"One of the greatest physicists of the 19th century and one of the finest experimenters of all time," Faraday made significant contributions to "our knowledge of the nature and potentialities of electricity…. He enunciated his theory of 'lines' or 'tubes' of magnetic force which was the starting point for the revolutionary theories of Clerk Maxwell and later of Einstein…. [His discoveries] laid the foundation of the modern electrical industry—electric light and power, telephony, wireless telegraphy, television, etc." (PMM 308). "Oersted had shown (1820) that an electric current generated magnetism; Faraday, among many, tried for ten years to generate electricity from magnetism. Towards the end of 1831 a new approach occurred to him and in 10 intensive days he concentrated on successfully accomplishing this and proving that the electricity so generated met all the criteria of real electricity. This he did in a paper read before the Royal Society on November 24, 1831 [the present paper]. Electric generation based on electro-magnetic induction was thus discovered and remains the means of generating nearly all the electricity in use today" (Dibner 64).
This volume contains (on pages 125-194) the first two of 29 papers Faraday published in Philosophical Transactions between 1832 and 1852; the first is widely hailed as Faraday's greatest, as it sets forth his breakthrough discovery of electromagnetic induction. "Among experimental philosophers Faraday holds by universal consent the foremost place" (Whittaker I:197). Mottelay, 484. See: Horblit 361; Grolier/Horblit 29; Ronalds, 167.
A fine copy, handsomely bound. Scarce.