34 | NewScientist | 11 September 2010

Zeros to heroes

No matter how elegant or ingenious they may at first seem, most novel scientific ideas turn out to be false. But for a remarkable few, the opposite is the case. Written off when first proposed, they turn out to be not only true but world-changing. In an era when research funding is scarce, these 11 ideas serve as a timely reminder of the value of pure science not only in terms of satisfying our curiosity, but ultimately for its endless practical uses.

OF THE many stories of how unlikely discoveries can change the world, this is the best known and remains the most relevant. Whether it is true in fact, or merely in spirit, remains an open question.

In 1821, while working at the Royal Institution in London, Michael Faraday followed up the work of the Dane Hans Christian Ørsted, who, alerted by a twitching compass needle, deduced that electricity and magnetism were linked together. Faraday developed the electric motor and then, a decade later, found that a magnet moving in a wire coil induced a current. In 1845, he formulated that cornerstone of modern physics, the field theory of electromagnetism.

As the story is usually told, the prime minister or some other senior politician was given a demonstration of induction by Faraday. When asked “What good is it?” Faraday replied: “What good is a newborn baby?” Or maybe he said: “Soon you will be able to tax it.” The former version of the story originated in a letter sent in

1783 by Faraday’s great predecessor in matters electrical, the American philosopher and politician Benjamin Franklin (Nature, vol 157, p 196). As for the source of the latter, no one knows.

Whatever was said at the time, the lesson is that it can take half a century for an investment in basic science to bear fruit. Faraday’s insights were applied in the 1850s in a failed attempt to build an electrically lit lighthouse, and in long-distance telegraph signalling – which led to the Atlantic telegraph cable. But it was not until the 1880s that electric power began to be widely used.

Frank James, professor of the history of science at the Royal Institution, points to a twist in the story of the encounter. True or not, it took root and was put to use in the 1880s, when the prominent biologist Thomas Huxley and the physicist John Tyndall campaigned for the government to fund science. They succeeded. Roger Highfield

Electromagnetism

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