life style of great scientist Michael Faraday .....! Michael Faraday, who came from a very poor family, became one of the greatest scientists in history. His achievement was remarkable in a time when science was the preserve of people born into privileged families. The unit of electrical capacitance is named the farad in his honor, with the symbol F. The faraday is a dimensionless unit of electric charge quantity, equal to approximately 6.02 x 10 23 electric charge carriers. This is equivalent to one mole , also known as Avogadro's constant . Education and Early Life Michael Faraday was born on September 22, 1791 in London, England, UK. He was the third child of James and Margaret Faraday. His father was a blacksmith who had poor health. Before marriage, his mother had been a servant. The family lived in a degree of poverty. Michael Faraday attended a local school until he was 13, where he received a basic education. To earn money for the family he started working as a delivery boy for a bookshop. He worked hard and impressed his employer. After a year, he was promoted to become an apprentice bookbinder Michael Faraday’s Scientific Achievements and Discoveries: It would be easy fill a book with details of all of Faraday’s discoveries – in both chemistry and physics. It is not an accident that Albert Einstein used to keep photos of three scientists in his office: Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday. Funnily enough, although in Faraday’s lifetime people had started to use the word physicist, Faraday disliked the word and always described himself as a philosopher. 1821: Discovery of Electromagnetic Rotation This is a glimpse of what would eventually develop into the electric motor, based on Hans Christian Oersted’s discovery that a wire carrying electric current has magnetic properties. 1823: Gas Liquefaction and Refrigeration In 1802 John Dalton had stated his belief that all gases could be liquified by the use of low temperatures and/or high pressures. Faraday provided hard evidence for Dalton’s belief by applying pressure to liquefy chlorine gas and ammonia gas for the first time. 1825: Discovery of Benzene Historically, benzene is one of the most important substances in chemistry, both in a practical sense – i.e. making new materials; and in a theoretical sense – i.e. understanding chemical bonding. Michael Faraday discovered benzene in the oily residue left behind from producing gas for lighting in London. 1831: Discovery of Electromagnetic Induction Faraday discovered that a varying magnetic field causes electricity to flow in an electric circuit. 1834: Faraday’s Laws of Electrolysis This is the science of understanding what happens at the interface of an electrode with an ionic substance. Electrochemistry is the science that has produced the Li ion batteries and metal hydride batteries capable of powering modern mobile technology. Faraday’s laws are vital to our understanding of electrode reactions.