Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The life of Michael Faraday might have begun and passed quietly in the remote seclusion of rural Westmorland, but for the pressure of wider events. In the mid to late 1700s, Britain had been fighting rival colonial powers at sea for many years, and it finally lost an expensive war against its own colonists in America. #2 Faraday was a book lover, and he was always reading. He learned from books, and he learned from his mistakes. He developed a method of self-improvement that involved reading, and he always tried to use precise language. #3 Faraday was a very curious young man, and he loved to read. He would copy out his notes from the lectures he went to, and he would often experiment with static electricity. He was already beginning to think about how electricity worked, and he questioned the truth of an ostensibly authoritative article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. #4 In 1800, John Tatum learned of the voltaic cell, or battery, invented by Alessandro Volta. It produced a continuous flow of electricity that could be used to demonstrate the structure of matter.