by Alan Hirshfeld
This year, in ninth grade, I decided to use Sabbath Mood Homeschool's study guides for our science courses. First Son is spending one term studying Chemistry, one term studying Physics, one term studying Weather, and a whole year studying Biology (but only the equivalent of a term as it's only once a week). The study guides suggest students may enjoy reading a biography each term of a prominent scientist of the field. I had trouble finding many of the ones recommended in the guide, but this one was available at PaperBackSwap, so I decided we'd give it a try. I finished it ahead of him as he's been focused on his history independent reading. (I think he's just going in order of his list, rather than trying to match them up to his course-work.) It's a wonderful book on Faraday, covering his personal and professional life in a way that presents the science without overwhelming the non-scientist (or student) reader.
The wonderful aspect of reading biographies like this is how they reveal to the reader the vast intellectual leaps (through often brain-numbing repetition of experiments) by placing scientists within their own time. It also emphasizes the kinds of characteristics that provide a foundation for strong scientific practices.
If there was one overriding element to Faraday's character, it was humility....Faraday approached both his science and his everyday conduct unhampered by ego, envy, or negative emotion. In his work, he assumed the inevitability of error and failure; whenever possible, he harness these as guides toward further investigation.I was pleased to find one of First Son's first experiments of the year described in the text: splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. (This experiment was relatively easy to do at home and yet one I would never have considered or attempted without it being listed right there in the study guide. It helped to have Kansas Dad home to supervise, too.)
Faraday's humility and dedication to unimpeachable laboratory experiments are an inspiration. When searching for an effect of magnetism on light, he adjusted polarity, magnetic strength, and pole positions, without any indication he would ever find a change.
Paragraph after paragraph, page after page, nothing but mind-numbing particulars, penned with drab uniformity in his own hand. Until September 13, 1845, paragraph 7,504. Here appears, in stout capital letters and underlined three times, a large exclamatory "BUT." That single word, an island rising above a tedious sea of ink, illuminated Faraday's joy as surely as the lamplight that suddenly illuminated his eye.There are points where the scientific accounts are more difficult to follow. A student may need to read some chapters more slowly than others. Many of the descriptions are beneficial, though; I still often confuse current and voltage, but there is an excellent explanation of the difference in the book.
Near the end of his career, Faraday devoted some of his time to campaigning for better and extended science education in schools. He wanted students to learn real science not just to draw them into the field, but also to equip them with the knowledge and skills to assess assertions and ideas they would encounter throughout their lives.
During a career that spanned more than four decades, Faraday laid the experimental foundations of our technological society; made important discoveries in chemistry, optics, geology, and metallurgy; developed prescient theories about space, force, and light; pressed for a scientifically literate populace years before science had been deemed worthy of common study; and manned the barricades against superstition and pseudoscience. He sought no financial gain or honorifics from any of his discoveries.This is an excellent biography for our science studies and complements well the work First Son did in the Physics part 1 guide.
I received nothing in exchange for this review which is only my honest opinion. I found this book recommended in the Sabbath Mood Homeschool study guide above (not an affiliate link). The link to Amazon is an affiliate link. I purchased this book used.
