Faraday and Disraeli

Faraday got money from Disraeli for his research.

Napoleon's army officers?
No, they are engineering students.

Instrument of imperialism at Eton College. Eton is a high school whose purpose was to produce young men whose mission was to expand the British empire.

Napoleon needed engineers and physicists to build up his army. In this photo, I am with two French army officers in their Napoleonic uniforms. They are students at the Ecole Polytiniques set up by Napoleon to produce army engineers. They were talking to me because they were interested in graduate schools in the United States.
Napoleon was particularly interested in sending projectiles accurately to destined places. Indeed, Napoleon was the major beneficiary of d'Alambert, Langrange, and Coriolis.
After the industrial revolution, Queen Victoria and her prime minister named Benjamin Disraeli had to build steam-powered warships and powerful guns to extend the territory of the British empire. They needed engineers and scientists. I assume they were paid generously by their government.

There was one British scientist who could play around with magnets, electric wires, and eletrochemicals. His name of course was Michael Faraday. He also wanted have some money from the government, and he asked Disraeli for support for his research. Disraeli however was not able to see how useful those magnets and electric wires to his imperial ventures.

Instead of saying flat No, Disraeli asked Faraday what role those gadgets could play for the Empire. Faraday then asked Disraeli why babies are needed for the Empire. Disraeli then decided to support Faraday's research. Click here for photos from the Faraday Museum in London.

Harry Truman of the United States signs the paper to establish the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in order to transform the Manhattan Project into civilian nuclear research programs. These days, most of the university research programs are supported by the government.

Physics played a more important role in the two world wars resulting in stockpiles of nuclear bombs. At the same time, physicists became more dependent on government fundings. More recently, physics became an essential component of high-tech capitalism.
During these historical processes, money was placed above physics. This is not an ideal situation. When we write proposals for money, we often have to write what we do not really believe in. This is the most painful process for scientists.
Fortunately, there are physicists who put the physics above money. John S. Toll was Wheeler's student at Princeton and came to the University of Maryland in 1953 to build the physics department. He served as the chairman of department until 1965. He hired me as an assistant professor in 1962, and I worked for him until 1965 when he went to Stony Brook as the university president.

On the door of the chairman's office, he had a sign saying
In 1978, Toll came back to Maryland as the chancellor of the State university system, and he became very happy whenever I invited Eugene Wigner to Maryland. Here is my photo with Toll and Wigner. We need more people like John S. Toll in physics. The best thing Toll did for me was to asign me as Dirac's servant when he visited Maryland in 1962. Click here for a story.
Let me summarize what I wanted to say.

photo from the AIP E. Segre
Visual Archives.

You would agree that the physics environment is ideal if money and physics variables are orthogonal to each other. The question is whether there are physics problems which are completely independent of money. Yes, there are many. Let me mention one of them.
Einstein was worrying about how an object looks to a moving observer. Bohr was worrying about the electron orbit of the hydrogen atom. Einstein and Bohr met frequently, but did they talk about how the H atom looks to a moving observer? Click here for a story.
This is a well-defined problem. This problem does not have anything to do with how much research grant you command. Let me stop here, and let look at some photos from the Faraday Museum in London.

Faraday Museum in London

Old library of the Royal Academy.

Where is the Museum? We can define Oxford Street and Regent Street as x and x axes respectively, with the Oxford Circus at the origin. Then Bond Street is parallel to the y axis in the third quadrant. The Bond Street consists of Old Bond and New Bond separated by the statue of Churchill and Roosevelt. The Museum is one block west of this statue along Albermarle Street. Click here for a map.
In early years, the Museum building was used for the Royal Institution. Thus, the Museum also contains many items inherited from this Institution.
1. This is the old library of the Royal Institution.
2. The old lecture hall is still preserved. In February of 2017, I attempted to give a lecture there, but nobody was in the audience. The hall was packed when Faraday gave his lecture at the same place 150 years ago.
This is a sketch of Faraday's lab from the Wikipedia page. It appears that this was his chemistry lab. During his time, physics was not well defined subject, and he was widely known as a chemist. He also had labs dealing with electricity, magnetism, as well as electro-chemicals. His experimental devices are shown in various show windows in the Museum.

Faraday's electromagnetic induction. This is too trivial to us these days. It was not the case for Faraday. He had to fiddle around wires, batteries, magnets, voltmeters as well as his imaginations in the unknown territories. Indeed, the show windows vividly demonstrate the agonies he went through.
1. Entrance to the Faraday Lab.
2. This sign tells how the displays are organized in this Museum.
3. Materials Lab.
4. Magnet and Magnetic Materials.
5. Electromagnetic Rotation.
6. Chemistry Lab.
I have listed above some photos, but you have to go the Museum to look at those items to see Faraday's passion for the scientific truth.
Faraday's statue at the entrance lobby of the Museum.
Back of the 20 Pound Bill shown on the wall of the entrance lobby. Why not front? Queen Elizabeth II of course.
In this photo, I am standing next to Faraday's statue at the Savoy place on the northern bank of the Thames at the Waterloo Bridge. Behind the statue is the headquarters building of the British Association of Electrical Engineers.
Faraday's grave at the Highgate Cemetery in London. This is his tombstone.
Among the persons well known to us, Karl Marx was also berried at this Cemetery. I was at his grave site. The Cemetery wikipage gives a list of the important people buried there, but Jean Simmons is the only person I could recognize, in addition to Faraday and Marx. Jean Simmons was one of the respected actresses of the past century. This tells how ignorant I still am even though I often pretend to know everything.

Interesting Places near the Museum

Click here to expand this map.

As shown on this map, New Bond Street is parallel to Regent Street and perpendicular to Oxford Street. This area is London's main shopping area. While most of the department stores are along Oxford Street. All the luxury stores are along the Bond Streets. New Bond stretches southward from Oxford Street. This street changes its name at the statue of Churchill and Roosevelt until Piccadilly Street in the South.
1. This is the statue of Churchill and Roosevelt. It is not large enough for me sit between these two giants in history. However, in this photo, I look OK with them.
2. From this point, Old Bond Street (south) looks like this, and New Bond Street (north) like this. The Union Jack flags are flying, because these photos were taken on the referendum day of June 2016 when the citizens of the United Kingdom voted to exit from the European Union.
The names of these shops are familiar to everybody. Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Rolex, etc. We know what to expect from those stores.

Wilson (1911) and Einstein (1920).
However, there is a short street called Savile Row parallel to New Bond Street as shown on this map. This one-way street appears like this. Nothing special.
1. This street has been defining men's fashion since 1800. The present form of men's dress was developed in the tailor shops on this street.
2. We wear suits and neckties for formal occasions. Until 1970, professors had to wear suits and neckties when they went to class rooms. This is a physics physics faculty photo of the Univ. of Maryland taken 1963. Every man is in this photo is wearing his suit and necktie.
  - Click here for the presidents of the United States. Men's fashion remained constant since the period of Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921).
  - Let us look at, Einstein's photo of 1920. He was also wearing his suit and necktie of our style.
3. The question is why men's dress style did not change for at least 100 years. while women's fashion changes every year if not every day. Do you know the answer to this question.
  I went into the one of the shops there and asked this question. The manager's answer was that they do not define the fashion. They simply make the dress according to the customer's demand.
  I then asked whether he knows the Western suit is called "Sebiro" in Japan. His answer was immediate. "Yes, we maintain a Sebiro store in the Ginza District of Tokyo. " The Ginza in Tokyo is the area with all expensive stores. Why Sebiro? It means Savile Row.
4. In 1850, Japan started adopting Western systems, and Emperor Meiji ordered his first tailored suit from one of the Savile Row stores. Then his ministers and many Japanese noble men followed what the Emperor did. Thus "Sebiro" is the Japanese word for Savile Row. I think "Sebiro" may become a good English word for "Suit and necktie."

For the rest of London

Click here. London is an exciting place. I learn new things whenever I go there, and I often add new photos to my London page.

How did he talk to Einstein?

copyright@2017 by Y. S. Kim, unless otherwise specified.
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2. Einstein page.
3. Princeton page.
4. Travel page.