The Story of Great InventionsBurns, Elmer Ellsworth
History
The Story of Great Inventions
Burns, Elmer Ellsworth
Inventions -- History
[Illustration: FIG. 30--FARADAY'S INDUCTION-COIL
Starting and stopping the battery current in the primary coil causes a
changing magnetic field, and this causes a current to flow in the
secondary coil.
Drawing reproduced by permission of Joseph G. Branch.]
What was the secret of it? Simply this: that a current in one wire will
cause a current to flow in another wire near it, but only while the
current in the first wire is changing. That is, at the instant when the
first wire is connected to the battery, or its connection broken, a
current is induced in the second wire. There is no battery or other
source of current connected to the second wire; but a current flows in
this wire because it is near a wire in which a current is rapidly
starting and stopping. When these two wires are wound in coils, together
they form an induction-coil. The wire which we have called the first
wire forms the "primary" coil, and the one we have called the second
wire forms the "secondary" coil. By repeatedly making and breaking the
circuit in the primary coil we get an alternating current in the
secondary coil. Fig. 31 is from a photograph of some of the coils
actually used by Faraday.
[Illustration: FIG. 31--HISTORICAL APPARATUS OF FARADAY IN THE ROYAL
INSTITUTION
Some of Faraday's transformer coils are shown here. The instrument on
the left in a glass case is his galvanometer.]
Faraday's Dynamo
To invent a new electrical machine was Faraday's next aim. Arago's disk
of copper whirling near a magnet had a current induced in it, so Faraday
thought. It was the action of this induced current which caused the
magnet to follow the whirling disk. Could the current in Arago's disk be
collected and caused to flow through a wire? He placed a copper disk
between the poles of a magnet. One galvanometer wire passed around the
axis of the disk, the other he held in contact with the edge. He whirled
the disk. The galvanometer needle moved. A current was flowing in the
disk as it whirled. The current from the whirling disk flowed through
the galvanometer. Faraday had discovered the dynamo (Fig. 32).
[Illustration: FIG. 32--FARADAY'S FIRST DYNAMO
A current flows in the copper disk as it whirls between the poles of
the magnet.
By permission of Joseph G. Branch.]
All this work occupied but ten days in the autumn of 1831, though years
of preparation had gone before. In these ten days the foundation was
laid for the induction-coil, modern dynamo-electric machinery, and
electric lighting. Fig. 33 shows the laboratory in which Faraday did
this work.
[Illustration: FIG. 33--FARADAY'S LABORATORY, WHERE THE FIRST DYNAMO WAS
MADE
From the water-color drawing by Miss Harriet Moore.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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