The Chemical History of a Candle

The "Chemical History Of A Candle" by Michael Faraday, is perhaps the most popular science book ever published. It has been published continuously since 1861. By design, the book is a series of lecture notes given by Faraday at his annual Christmas Lectures, beginning around 1849 in London. Faraday was a science celebrity in his lifetime, but much more so than those we have today because they lack such career achievements in science as his.

In this simple series of lectures, Faraday ties together much of what was know about chemistry and physics, simply by considering a burning candle. What I love about this first lecture is the way Faraday demonstrates what a perfect storage medium of energy the wax candle is. Hydrocarbons are our friends -- not something to be demonized.

 

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Sonic Youth--Candle

No reason except that I was thinking about a commenter named Candle who used to come around here and that I still miss her.

The song "Candle" is buried here.

Mr. Faraday Was Delighted

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Faraday was delighted, and a little alarmed, with Maxwell's approach to his ideas and the way in which it gave his theory the same status as action at a distance theories: [1] 'I was at first almost frightened when I saw such mathematical force made to bear upon the subject and then wondered to see that the subject stood it so well.' He returned to this theme later in 1857 when he asked Maxwell why mathematical conclusions may 'not be expressed in common language as full, clearly, and definitely as in mathematical formulae...translating them out of their hieroglyphics, that we might also work upon them by experiment'.

-- Frank A.J.L. James Michael Faraday: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press (2010)
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[1] Newton's law of gravitation is an example of a force at a distance:

Every point mass attracts every single other point mass by a force pointing along the line intersecting both points. The force is proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Expressed mathematically:

F = G m₁m₂ /r²