Abstract
IN February 1825, Faraday was appointed director of the laboratory of the Royal Institution, and his first act after appointment was to invite the members to evening meetings in the laboratory. These evening meetings developed into the Faraday evening discourses which have remained a feature of the Institution unto this day. It was accordingly very appropriate that the celebration of the centenary of the discovery of benzene by Faraday should be inaugurated on June 12 by the Friday evening discourse on “Faraday as a Chemist” by Sir William Pope. Elsewhere in this issue we print Sir William Pope's discourse together with papers read on the occasion of the centenary celebrations on June 16. Sir William Pope first referred to Faraday's youth and early scientific training and then passed on to a brief discussion of his chemical investigations. Faraday analysed caustic lime from Tuscany, repeated and extended E. D. Clarke's work on the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, and he burnt diamonds. He 'discovered the substances now known as hexachloro-ethane, tetrachloro-ethylene, and hexachlorobenzene before he isolated benzene in 1825. Steel alloys and optical glass were studied for several years and a large number of gases were liquefied for the first time. He determined the composition of naphthalene and investigated the action of chlorine on benzene in sunlight, in this way discovering ^-dichlorobenzene. Gold films, solutions of colloidal gold and electrochemical researches nearly complete the list of his chemical investigations. Sir William Pope laid stress on the significance of the discovery of benzene in view of later important technical and scientific developments, and he referred to the marvellous suggestiveness of much of Faraday's work. He also described Faraday's pre-eminence as an experimenter, his greatness as a scientific theorist, his versatility, and his innate but undeveloped mathematical ability. The fruit of Faraday's labour has hot yet all been gathered; a hundred years hence the Friday evening lecturer will have an even more wonderful tale to tell of discoveries inspired by the work and thought of Michael Faraday.
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Current Topics and Events. Nature 115, 986–991 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115986a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115986a0