The Life of Faraday

A bookbinder’s apprentice listens to Humphry Davy and imagines a life devoted to science. Years later, Michael Faraday must choose between lucrative outside work and discoveries that promise little money. Aichi Keiichi follows that choice into the laboratory, the lecture hall and the quiet routines of an extraordinary life.

The first part of this Japanese biography portrays Faraday’s childhood, marriage, friendships, faith, public honors and declining health. The second reconstructs his investigations of gases, glass, electrical induction, electrolysis, magnetic properties and light, showing how patient experiments and imaginative questions could reshape scientific understanding.

Letters, notebook extracts and memorable demonstrations accompany the narrative, along with supplementary portraits of Rumford, Davy and Young. The complete chronology, annotated bibliography and author’s name-and-term appendix remain included. This unabridged English translation preserves the historical author’s scientific explanations and judgments, with notes identifying textual difficulties and printed inconsistencies. A portrait of disciplined curiosity emerges: a researcher who valued discovery, shared its excitement and repeatedly declined the rewards that might distract him from it.