Faraday to William Jerdan   11 January 1837

Royal Institution, 11 January, 1833.

My dear Sir, - I write this note principally for the purpose of stating the subject of the opening ceremony, which I must give. I thought that perhaps you would like to mention it in the next Gazette1, as being new to English men of science. Mossotti2, who is, I believe, appointed a Professor at Corfu, has, by recent clever and deep investigation, shown that it is probable the phenomena of electric attraction and repulsion, with the attraction of aggregation and the attraction of gravitation,may be reduced to one simple law, as much more universal than gravitation as these three sets of effects exceed those of gravity alone3. It will, of course, be my business to give this as popular a form as I can at the meeting in question4.

Ever, dear Sir, | Yours faithfully, | M. Faraday

1
Which Jerdan did in Lit.Gaz., 14 January 1837, pp.25-6.
2
Ottaviano Fabrizio Mossotti (1791–1863, DSB). Professor of Mathematics Professor of Mathematics in Corfu, 1824–1841 and then at Pisa until death.
3
Mossotti (1836). See Faraday to Whewell, 13 December 1836, letter 954, volume 2.
4
See Lit.Gaz., 4 February 1837, p.72 for an account of Faraday's Friday Evening Discourse of 20 January 1837 on ‘Signor Mossotti’s late researches in connexion with electricity, gravitation &c.’

Bibliography

MOSSOTTI, Ottaviano Fabrizio (1836): Sur les forces qui régissent la constitution intérieure des corps, Turin.

Please cite as “Faraday0964a,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 23 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0964a