FARADAY, MICHAEL.. - SELF-INDUCTION DISCOVERED AND INVESTIGATED.

Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Ninth Series. §. 15. On the Influence of an Electric Current on itself: - and on the inductive action of Electric Currents generally. (Sections 1048-1118). Received December 18, 1834.- Read January 29, 1835.

(London, Richard Taylor, 1835). 4to. No wrappers as extracted from "Philosophical Transactions" 1835 - Part I. Pp. 41-56., 1 textillustr. Clean and fine.

First appearance of a historical paper in which Faraday (independent of Henry's discovery of the same phenomena in 1832)discovers SELF-INDUCTION or the "extra current" and points out the importent influence it must have in the construction of electr-magnetic machines (electro-motors).

"Faraday showed that the powerful momentary current, which was observed when the circuit was interrupted, was really an induced current governed by the same laws as all other induced currents, but with this peculiarity, that the induced and inducing current now flowed in the same circuit. In fact, the current in its steady state establishes in the surrounding region a magnetic field, whose lines of force are linked with the circuit; and teh removal of these lines of forcewhen the circuit is broken originates an induced current, which reatly reinforces the primary current just before its final extinction."(Whittaker in "A History of the Aether and Electricity")

"In the series of experiments which are detailed in this paper, the author inquires into the causes of some remarkable phenomena relating to the action of an electrical current upon itself, under certain circumstances, wherby its intensity is highly exalted, and occasionally increased to ten, twenty, or even fifty times that which it originally possessed."(Abstract).

From 1831 to 1852 Michael Faraday published his "Experimental Researches in Electricity" in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. These papers contain not only an impressive series of experimental discoveries, but also a collection of heterodox theoretical concepts on the nature of these phenomena expressed in terms of lines of forces and fields. He published 30 papers in all under this general title.They represents Faraday's most importent work, are classics in both chemistry and physics and are the experimental foundations for Maxwell's electro-magnetic theory of light, using Faraday's concepts of lines of force or tubes of magnetic and electrical forces. His many experiments on the effects of electricity and magnetism presented in these papers lead to the fundamental discoveries of 'induced electricity' (the Farday current), the electronic state of matter, the identity of electricity from different sources, equivalents in electro-chemical decomposition, electrostatic induction, hydro-electricity, diamagnetism, relation of gravity to electricity, atmospheric magnetism and many other.

"Among experimental philosophers Faraday holds by universal consent the foremost place. The memoirs in which his discoveries are enshrined will never ceaseto be read with admiration and delight; and future generations will preserve with an affection not less enduring the personal records and familiar letters, which recall the memory of his humble and unselfish spirit."(Edmund Whittaker in A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity).
The paper is reprinted in Magie: A Source Book in Physics p.485 ff.

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