The Royal Institution in London is one of the world's most important scientific organizations. In the picture above, Michael Faraday delivers one of the famous "Christmas Lectures."
Billy and I visited the RI a couple of weeks ago and got to sit in the famous theater. 
I even got to stand at the famous desk on which so much new science was presented to the world. More on the RI (and Michael Faraday) tomorrow.
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It's funny you should mention the Christmas Lectures. I think one of the greatest lectures in science was Faraday's Christmas lecture on the science of the candle. Luckily, through the miracle of Project Gutenberg, you can download this incredible lecture for yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe Chemical History of a Candle
If you search around on Google Books, you can probably even find a scan that includes illustrations.
Great stuff.
VQ4KSL, Charles Ludwig, wrote a book about Faraday called "Michael Faraday, Father of Electronics". The book's target audience was meant for secondary school students or religious school students (the book mentions his religious beliefs). The wife bought it for me and I thought it was an OK book. I did not know about Faraday growing up poor without a formal education and his speech impediment (he could not pronounce the letter 'R' as a child). I saw a link to the free e-book copy : http://librariesbooks.co.cc/ebook3/djvu-free-ebook-edition.html
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