Faraday to Charles Manby   27 February 1856

Royal Institution | 27 Feby 1856

My dear Sir

I send you the old notes I referred to1. They were not intended for the eyes of others than myself. So keep the book to yourself.

Ever Truly Yours | M. Faraday

C. Manby Esqr | &c &c &c

1
This letter refers to Faraday’s examination of the American calculating boy Zerah Colburn (1804-1840, Smith (1983), 181-210) on 1 July 1816. See letter 3094, Davy to Faraday, 1 July 1816, letter 65, volume 1 and IET MS SC2 CPB, pp.87-100 - presumably the old notes referred to here. Colburn was mentioned specifically in Bidder (1856), 253.

Bibliography

BIDDER, George Parker (1856): “On Mental Calculation”, Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., 15: 251-80.

SMITH, Steven B. (1983): The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies, Past and Present, New York.

Please cite as “Faraday3093,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 2 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday3093