Editing Michael Faraday (section)

==Royal Institution and public service==
[[File:FaradayFatherThames.jpg|thumb|upright|Michael Faraday meets [[Father Thames]], from ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' (21 July 1855).]]
Faraday had a long association with the [[Royal Institution of Great Britain]]. He was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the House of the Royal Institution in 1821.<ref name=RIBiography>{{cite web|title=Michael Faraday (1791–1867)|url=http://www.rigb.org/our-history/people/f/michael-faraday|publisher=The Royal Institution|access-date=20 February 2014}}</ref> He was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society|Fellow]] of the [[Royal Society]] in 1824.<ref name=ODNB/> In 1825, he became Director of the Laboratory of the Royal Institution.<ref name=RIBiography />  Six years later, in 1833, Faraday became the first [[Fullerian Professor of Chemistry]] at the [[Royal Institution of Great Britain]], a position to which he was appointed for life without the obligation to deliver lectures. His sponsor and mentor was [[John 'Mad Jack' Fuller]], who created the position at the Royal Institution for Faraday.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Jones|first1=Roger|title=What's Who?: A Dictionary of Things Named After People and the People They are Named After|date=2009|publisher=Troubador Publishing Ltd|page=74}}</ref>

Beyond his scientific research into areas such as chemistry, electricity, and magnetism at the [[Royal Institution]], Faraday undertook numerous, and often time-consuming, service projects for private enterprise and the British government. This work included investigations of explosions in coal mines, being an [[expert witness]] in court, and along with two engineers from [[Chance Brothers]] {{circa|1853}}, the preparation of high-quality optical glass, which was required by Chance for its lighthouses. In 1846, together with [[Charles Lyell]], he produced a lengthy and detailed report on a serious [[explosion]] in the colliery at [[Haswell, County Durham]], which killed 95 miners.<ref name="Explosions"/> Their report was a meticulous [[forensic investigation]] and indicated that [[coal dust]] contributed to the severity of the explosion.<ref name="Explosions">{{cite news |title=Causes of accidental explosions in the 19th century |url=https://www.rigb.org/blog/2020/february/accidental-explosions |access-date=8 September 2020 |agency=The Royal Institution}}</ref> The first-time explosions had been linked to dust, Faraday gave a demonstration during a lecture on how ventilation could prevent it. The report should have warned coal owners of the hazard of coal dust explosions, but the risk was ignored for over 60 years until the 1913 [[Senghenydd Colliery Disaster]].<ref name="Explosions"/>

[[File:Lighthouse lantern room with Fresnel lens.png|thumb|left|upright|Lighthouse lantern room from mid-1800s]]
As a respected scientist in a nation with strong maritime interests, Faraday spent extensive amounts of time on projects such as the construction and operation of [[lighthouse]]s and protecting the bottoms of ships from [[corrosion]]. His workshop still stands at [[Trinity Buoy Wharf]] above the Chain and Buoy Store, next to London's only lighthouse where he carried out the first experiments in electric lighting for lighthouses.<ref>Smith, Denis (2001). ''London and the Thames Valley''. Thomas Telford; {{ISBN|0-7277-2876-8}}, p. 236.</ref>

Faraday was also active in what would now be called [[environmental science]], or engineering. He investigated industrial pollution at [[Swansea]] and was consulted on air pollution at the [[Royal Mint]]. In July 1855, Faraday wrote a letter to ''[[The Times]]'' on the subject of the foul condition of the [[River Thames]], which resulted in an often-reprinted cartoon in ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]''. (See also [[The Great Stink]]).<ref name="Times">Faraday, Michael (9 July 1855). "The State of the Thames", ''The Times''. p. 8.</ref>

[[File:Faraday apparatus for ideomotor effect on table turning.png|thumb|upright=0.9|Faraday's apparatus for experimental demonstration of [[Ideomotor phenomenon|ideomotor effect]] on table-turning]]
Faraday assisted with the planning and judging of exhibits for the [[Great Exhibition]] of 1851 in [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]], London.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Correspondence of Michael Faraday: 1849–1855, Volume 4 |date=1991 |publisher=IET |page=xxxvii}}</ref> He also advised the [[National Gallery, London|National Gallery]] on the cleaning and protection of its art collection, and served on the National Gallery Site Commission in 1857.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=21950|page=4219|date=16 December 1856}}</ref><ref>[[#Thomas|Thomas]], p. 83</ref> Education was another of Faraday's areas of service; he lectured on the topic in 1854 at the Royal Institution,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/scienceeducation00roya|title=Science and education; lectures delivered at the Royal institution of Great Britain|last1=Royal Institution of Great Britain|last2=Whewell|first2=William|last3=Faraday|first3=Michael|last4=Latham|first4=Robert Gordon|last5=Daubeny|first5=Charles|last6=Tyndall|first6=John|last7=Paget|first7=James|last8=Hodgson|first8=William Ballantyne|last9=Lankester|first9=E. Ray (Edwin Ray)|date=1917|publisher=W. Heinemann|others=Library of Congress|pages=39–74 [51]}}</ref> and, in 1862, he appeared before a Public Schools Commission to give his views on education in Great Britain. Faraday also weighed in negatively on the public's fascination with [[table-turning]],<ref>{{cite news|last=Faraday |first=Michael |title=Table-turning |work=[[The Illustrated London News]] |date=2 July 1853 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?q1=faraday;id=chi.60765664;view=1up;seq=526;start=1;sz=10;page=search;num=530#view=1up;seq=526 |page=530}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924012323014|title=Michael Faraday; his life and work|last=Thompson|first=Silvanus Phillips|date=1898|publisher=London, Cassell|others=Cornell University Library|pages=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924012323014/page/n269 250]–252}}</ref> [[mesmerism]], and [[seance]]s, and in so doing chastised both the public and the nation's educational system.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FH0bc2VJNe4C&pg=PR30|title=The correspondence of Michael Faraday. Vol. 4|last1=James|first1=Frank A.J.L|last2=Faraday|first2=Michael|date=1991|publisher=The Institution of Electrical Engineers|isbn=978-0-86341-251-6|location=London|pages=xxx–xxii|language=en}}</ref>

Before his famous Christmas lectures, Faraday delivered chemistry lectures for the City Philosophical Society from 1816 to 1818 in order to refine the quality of his lectures.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1119/1.1343427| title = Michael Faraday: Prince of lecturers in Victorian England| journal = The Physics Teacher| volume = 39| issue = 1| pages = 32–36| year = 2001| last1 = Lan | first1 = B.L. |bibcode = 2001PhTea..39...32L }}</ref>

[[File:Professor Faraday lecturing at the Royal Institution, 27th December, 1855 RIIC 0006 20110213 BAL EP.jpg|thumb|left|Faraday (standing behind a desk) delivering a [[Royal Institution Christmas Lectures|Christmas Lecture]] to the general public at the [[Royal Institution]] in 1856]]
Between 1827 and 1860 at the [[Royal Institution]] in London, Faraday gave a series of nineteen [[Royal Institution Christmas Lectures|Christmas lectures]] for young people, a series which continues today. The objective of the lectures was to present science to the general public in the hopes of inspiring them and generating revenue for the Royal Institution. They were notable events on the social calendar among London's gentry. Over the course of several letters to his close friend Benjamin Abbott, Faraday outlined his recommendations on the art of lecturing, writing "a flame should be lighted at the commencement and kept alive with unremitting splendour to the end".<ref>Hirshfeld, Alan (2006). ''The Electric Life of Michael Faraday''. New York: Walker & Company; {{ISBN|0-8027-1470-6}}</ref> His lectures were joyful and juvenile, he delighted in filling soap bubbles with various gasses (in order to determine whether or not they are magnetic), but the lectures were also deeply philosophical. In his lectures he urged his audiences to consider the mechanics of his experiments: "you know very well that ice floats upon water&nbsp;... Why does the ice float? Think of that, and philosophise".<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1063/1.3035100| title = Michael Faraday and the Art of Lecturing| journal = Physics Today| volume = 21| issue = 8| pages = 30–38| year = 1968| last1 = Seeger | first1 = R.J. | bibcode = 1968PhT....21h..30S}}</ref> The subjects in his lectures consisted of Chemistry and Electricity, and included: 1841: ''The Rudiments of Chemistry'', 1843: ''First Principles of Electricity'', 1848: ''[[The Chemical History of a Candle]]'', 1851: ''Attractive Forces'', 1853: ''Voltaic Electricity'', 1854: ''The Chemistry of Combustion'', 1855: ''The Distinctive Properties of the Common Metals'', 1857: ''Static Electricity'', 1858: ''The Metallic Properties'', 1859: ''The Various Forces of Matter and their Relations to Each Other''.<ref>{{cite web|title=History of the Christmas Lectures|url=http://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/history|publisher=The Royal Institution|access-date=16 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170609035905/http://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/history|archive-date=9 June 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>