Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity: Guide to a first reading - Hardcover

Faraday, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1888009136 ISBN 13: 9781888009132

Publisher: Green Lion Press, 2001

Synopsis

In this guidebook to Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity, Howard Fisher guides the reader through Faraday's work, displaying Faraday's experimental virtuosity and keen theoretical insight. Fisher has a wonderful way of seeing the philosophical and literary aspects that make Faraday's Researches not cold science but a human work. Fisher's thoughtful selections and clear, helpful explanations of the instrumentation and electromagnetic phenomena make this fascinating text accessible to those who lack time to find their way through the labyrinths of the original.

About this title

From the Author:

My aim in this Guide is to engage Faraday's thought as far as possible in its own terms. This means taking his own words---and he is a consummate prose writer---seriously enough to question and explore their nuances and possibilities. It means bypassing the credos of modern theory and allowing his terms to find their own meanings in the context of Faraday's own experiments. No one is better equipped for this effort than a "first reader," who may have accumulated fewer burdensome preconceptions than others. But I hope experienced readers of Faraday will likewise find this approach both inviting and rewarding.

From the Back Cover:

"An excellent introduction to Faraday's work on electricity."
---L. Pearce Williams, Cornell University, author of Michael Faraday.

"Among creative scientific workers, Michael Faraday's writings are some of the most accessible. Yet there are terms, constructions, and theories in his work the meaning of which are not immediately transparent even to the informed reader. Fisher in this guide has provided a useful way through parts of Faraday's enormously influential Experimental Researches in Electricity."
---Frank A.J.L. James, The Royal Institution, editor of The Correspondence of Michael Faraday.

"Faraday is always a delight to read--he's lucid and carries the reader with him on his odyssey investigating physical phenomena. We are also privileged to witness each stage in the development of his ideas. In this edition of his Experimental Researches in Electricity our appreciation of Faraday's writings is further heightened by Howard Fisher acting as our trusty and perceptive guide."
---Geoffrey Cantor, University of Leeds, author of Michael Faraday, Sandemanian and Scientist.

"Howard Fisher has produced an invaluable guide for the reader new to Faraday's writings. With a keen sense of what readers might find confusing, Fisher provides clear explanations of the basic science, decriptions of unusual apparatus, helpful terminology notes, and new figures that enhance otherwise-puzzling aspects of one of the liveliest and most readable of all great scientific works. Used alone, or--even better--along with the recently republished complete series of Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity, Fisher's book is likely to be the standard 'starting place' for years to come.
---Ryan Tweney, Bowling Green State University, author of Michael Faraday's 'Chemical Notes, Hintes, Suggetions and Objects of Pursuit' of 1822.

"Howard Fisher is exceptionally well equipped to guide us in a reading of the Experimental Reseaches in Electricity. He himself has an impressive talent for experimenting and his years of experience in discussing the "Great Books" in seminars at St. John's College have revealed his skill at ferreting out central issues and clarifying discussion of them."
---Thomas K. Simpson, St. John's College, author of Maxwell on the Electromagnetic Field.

About this edition

• Publisher: Green Lion Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1888009136
• ISBN 13: 9781888009132
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 635
• Editor: Fisher Howard J.