Of Scottish heritage and born in England in 1791, Faraday explored a relatively new branch of science: electromagnetism. Apparently, his interest in this topic began while working in chemistry.
His explorations in both chemistry and physics were informed by a worldview that saw the universe as structured around rational principles like algebra and geometry. Part of Faraday’s genius was to explore essentially mathematical topics intuitively and by means of images, often using few or even no equations or formulas.
Pearce Williams, Chairman of Cornell University’s Department of Science and Technology Studies, describes Faraday’s work, which has become an indispensable foundation for much of modern science:
Faraday, who became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century, began his career as a chemist. He wrote a manual of practical chemistry that reveals his mastery of the technical aspects of his art, discovered a number of new organic compounds, among them benzene, and was the first to liquefy a “permanent” gas (i.e., one that was believed to be incapable of liquefaction). His major contribution, however, was in the field of electricity and magnetism. He was the first to produce an electric current from a magnetic field, invented the first electric motor and dynamo, demonstrated the relation between electricity and chemical bonding, discovered the effect of magnetism on light, and discovered and named diamagnetism, the peculiar behaviour of certain substances in strong magnetic fields. He provided the experimental, and a good deal of the theoretical, foundation upon which James Clerk Maxwell erected classical electromagnetic field theory.
European culture, and Western Civilization generally, served as an incubator for modern chemistry and physics by promulgating a worldview which included the notion that the physical universe is structured around algebra and geometry. Already present in medieval scholasticism, and made more explicit in Newtonian thought, this worldview saw lawlike regularity as evidence of underlying mathematical principles in the observable world.
The fact that an equation like F = ma is applicable and verifiable not merely here and there, but everywhere, motivated the thought that there is a universal structure to matter.
Alan Hirshfeld is Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts and a noted astronomer. He writes:
From the start, Faraday’s investigations were more than a joyous commune with nature; they were a sincere attempt to discern God’s invisible qualities through the very design of the world. Through well-constructed observations and experiments, he sought to distill nature’s seemingly diverse phenomena to a common, irreducible basis - and in this fundamental unity of the universe, he would witness the divine signature. The intense spirituality that imbued Faraday’s science derived from his upbringing in the Sandemanian faith, a tightly knit Protestant sect founded in the mid-1700s by Scottish minister John Glas and his son-in-law Robert Sandeman.
As already noted, medieval thinkers paved the way for modern physics and chemistry by hypothesizing that there was a uniformity throughout the empirical world. Whether on the Earth, on the Moon, or on Jupiter, there were certain essential feature to matter and to energy. These features are immutable and can often be expressed mathematically.
This view of the physical universe is a distinctive feature of Western Civilization and of the culture into which Faraday was born.
Faraday, and modern observational science, inherited a second notion from the Middle Ages. From the Augustinian tradition come the notion of experimental error. Francis Bacon systematically catalogue sources of experimental error and create a taxonomy of them.
Experimental error is the scientist’s version of humility: acknowledging the possibility of mistakes.
The synonymous words ‘Sandemanian’ and ‘Glasite’ (or ‘Glassite’) are used to describe Faraday's views.
For Faraday, the concept of experimental error was already contained in a spiritual view of human nature, as Alan Hirshfeld writes:
Inspired by a literalist reading of the New Testament, Sandemanians eschewed pride and wealth in favor of piety, humility, and community with fellow Sandemanians. Much of Faraday’s over serenity owed itself to the affirmative aspects of his religion. “He drinks from a fount on Sunday which refreshes his soul for a week,” noted friend and biographer John Tyndall. Faraday, the Sandemanian, took human fallibility as a given, so he never staked his ego on the correctness or acceptance of his own ideas. He was a scientific pilgrim, inching his way toward the heart of a complex universe. Whether his chosen path proved mistaken was of little consequence; there was always another path. The joy was in the journey.
Whether implicit or explicit, the desire for a sort of ‘Grand Unified Theory’ is present in the work of many different scientists. They hunt for a single systemic explanation behind a manifold phenomena.
Ian Hutchinson, Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, writes about Faraday’s search for unity behind the range of contrasting empirical data:
One example of the influence of his theological perspective on his science is Faraday’s preoccupation with nature’s laws. ‘God has been pleased to work in his material creation by laws,’ he remarked, and ‘the Creator governs his material works by definite laws resulting from the forces impressed on matter.’ This is part of the designer’s art: ‘How wonderful is to me the simplicity of nature when we rightly interpret her laws.’ But, as Cantor points out, ‘the consistency and simplicity of nature were not only conclusions that Faraday drew from his scientific work but they were also metaphysical presuppositions that directed his research.’ He sought the unifying laws relating the forces of the world, and was highly successful in respect of electricity, magnetism, and light. His program was less successful in attempting to unify gravity and electricity, for which failure he may readily be forgiven, since 150 years later we still don’t know how to do that!
The nearly universal quest, among scientists operating within the framework of Western Civilization or European culture, for unifying principles is a quest fueled by an understanding of the physical world as structured by, and built upon, rational and mathematical principles.
Faraday’s work is a prime example, but also only one of many examples, of scientific work powered by a particular worldview. Some version of medieval Scholasticism, with its Augustinian realism about human error and its Thomistic optimism about the power of human reason, is the energizing force not only behind Faraday’s brilliant work, but also behind much of modern physics and chemistry.
