ABSTRACT
Michael Faraday works on electrochemistry began a series of investigations which were remarkably fruitful, but never produced the crucial experiment which was the overriding aim of the search. This chapter examines this series of investigations, as well as some of the refinements in Faraday's idea of the field which resulted. Faraday first thought of applying his field theory to electrochemistry. Faraday's work in electrochemistry was vast, and included a theory of the voltaic battery. As a result of his discovery of electromagnetic induction, Faraday had clarified his ideas on field theory, and had quite gained confidence in them. Faraday's discovery of the intimate relation between electrical force and chemical affinity strengthened his conviction that matter consists of fields of forces, but he found no crucial experiment to confirm his theory of contiguous action. For this experiment he turned hopefully to the phenomena of static electricity.
