Faraday, Michael, 1791-1867; Physicists -- Great Britain -- Biography
An eminent example of magne-crystallic action adduced by Plucker, and
experimented on by Faraday, was Iceland spar. It is what in optics is
called a negative crystal, and according to the law of Plucker, the axis
of such a crystal was always repelled by a magnet. But we showed that it
was only necessary to substitute, in whole or in part, carbonate of iron
for carbonate of lime, thus changing the magnetic but not the optical
character of the crystal, to cause the axis to be attracted. That the
deportment of magnetic crystals is exactly antithetical to that of
diamagnetic crystals isomorphous with the magnetic ones, was proved
to be a general law of action. In all cases, the line which in
a diamagnetic crystal set equatorially, always set itself in an
isomorphous magnetic crystal axially. By mechanical compression other
bodies were also made to imitate the Iceland spar.
These and numerous other results bearing upon the question were
published at the time in the 'Philosophical Magazine' and in
'Poggendorff's Annalen'; and the investigation of diamagnetism and
magne-crystallic action was subsequently continued by me in the
laboratory of Professor Magnus of Berlin. In December, 1851, after I had
quitted Germany, Dr. Bence Jones went to the Prussian capital to see
the celebrated experiments of Du Bois Reymond. Influenced, I suppose, by
what he there heard, he afterwards invited me to give a Friday evening
discourse at the Royal Institution. I consented, not without fear and
trembling. For the Royal Institution was to me a kind of dragon's den,
where tact and strength would be necessary to save me from destruction.
On February 11, 1853, the discourse was given, and it ended happily.
I allude to these things, that I may mention that, though my aim and
object in that lecture was to subvert the notions both of Faraday and
Plucker, and to establish in opposition to their views what I regarded
as the truth, it was very far from producing in Faraday either enmity or
anger. At the conclusion of the lecture, he quitted his accustomed seat,
crossed the theatre to the corner into which I had shrunk, shook me by
the hand, and brought me back to the table. Once more, subsequently,
and in connection with a related question, I ventured to differ from him
still more emphatically. It was done out of trust in the greatness of
his character; nor was the trust misplaced. He felt my public dissent
from him; and it pained me afterwards to the quick to think that I had
given him even momentary annoyance. It was, however, only momentary. His
soul was above all littleness and proof to all egotism. He was the same
to me afterwards that he had been before; the very chance expression
which led me to conclude that he felt my dissent being one of kindness
and affection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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