Michael Faraday - The chemical history of a candle : with a facsimile reproduction of Faradays manuscript lecture notes from Royal Institution MS F4 J21

THE CHEMICAL HISTORY OF A CANDLE

Photograph of Michael Faraday by John Watkins, c. April 1861

MICHAEL FARADAY

SESQUICENTENARY EDITION

with a facsimile reproduction of Faradays manuscript
lecture notes from Royal Institution MS F4 J21

EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY

FRANK A. J. L. JAMES

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in

Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

Frank A. J. L. James 2011

The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Data available

Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

ISBN 9780199694914

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

In Memoriam
A. Rupert Hall (19202009)
Marie Boas Hall (19192009)

Anyone fortunate enough, as I was, to spend ten years at the Royal Institution carrying out laser research and lecturing for the young can testify that to this day Faradays spirit exudes from every pore of the Institution. In 1980-9, the building had a faded elegance redolent of that in Faradays time. There was much dust in the atmosphere, which made tuning our lasers very difficultstudents grappling with this task were comforted with the thought that some of the dust may have been Faradays own skin cells! We viewed our efforts with that most modern of light sources as being in direct descent from Faradays own original light source, the candle. It is wonderful that Faradays Chemical History of a Candle is to be re-issued, not only as an historical document, but also as a lesson in how to communicate science. I have lectured well over one hundred times in that historic theatre, and gave four Friday Evening Discourses, and (jointly) the 1987-8 BBC-TV Christmas Lectures on Crystals and Lasers. Every time one entered the theatre to begin a lecture, one felt a tension best described as having Faraday looking over ones shoulder criticizing delivery and content. His collected writings, published as Advice to Lecturers, still good today, was always available to Royal Institution lecturers, and provided sobering reading if ones prepared lecture did not conform with Faradays views on how it should be done:

An experimental lecturer should attend very carefully to the choice he may make of experiments for the illustration of his subject. They should be important... clear... rather approach to simplicity, and explain the established principles of the subject, than be elaborate...

A flame should be lighted at the commencement, and kept alive with unremitting splendour to the end.

Readers of this new edition of Chemical History of a Candle will find a text that amply demonstrates Faradays capabilities to engage and enthuse an audience; a process as necessary today as it was then. Enjoy it!

David Phillips
Professor Emeritus, Imperial College London
President, Royal Society of Chemistry
Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer, 19878
11 January 2011

I thank the Royal Institution for permission to publish this new edition of Michael Faradays The Chemical History of a Candle and to reproduce in facsimile, for the first time, Faradays notes for these lectures. The other resources of the Collections of the Royal Institution as well as those of the British Library, London Library, and the Geological Society were invaluable in the writing of the Introduction. Once again I am deeply grateful to my colleague Ms Jane Harrison, who oversaw all the scanning that was needed in the preparation of this book. Finally, I thank Dr Srgio Rodrigues and Professor W. H. Brock for much helpful information and advice.

Frank A. J. L. James

There is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed which does not come into play and is touched upon in these phenomena. There is no better, there is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle.

(

So are we made dependent not merely upon our fellow-creatures, but upon our fellow-existers, all Nature being tied together by the laws that make one part conduce to the good of another.

(, pp. 1678)

Michael Faradays The Chemical History of a Candle must rank as one of the most popular science books ever published. Based on the final series of Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution to be delivered by Faraday, then in his seventieth year, it has never been out of print in English since it was first published in March 1861. Frequently anthologized, it has appeared in more than a dozen other languages, most recently in a new Japanese edition and the first Portuguese translation.

This Introduction explores this little book, less than 36,000 words in length, in terms of the development of the Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution, Faradays life and work, and the cultural and social contexts in which it was published and read. As such this edition should, in part, be viewed as a contribution towards understanding the development of popular science, which has attracted much historical attention recently.