Joseph Henry

1996/12/01 Kaltzada, Pili - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biografiak

This American physicist was born in Albany in 1797. He was born into a working family and only studied primary. Since he was young he had to work to survive and is said to devote his hours of play to learning. His curiosity seemed insatiable and he first dealt with the natural phenomenon. He was a brilliant student who managed to be admitted to the Albany Academy, where he taught private lessons to pay for classes. In 1826 he began teaching mathematics and science at the Albany Academy.

He did his most outstanding work in the field of electricity. I used the summer holidays to experiment. Believing that science was a good of the whole of society, he never patented inventions, which was a great favor for scientists who enriched themselves based on Henry's works.

Henry became famous for his essays on electromagnets. He knew the iron core coil system, but to increase the magnetic field it was necessary to increase its capacity. It accumulated many fine threads in a coil, but short circuits were produced. Until he discovered the electrical insulator, he found it impossible to create large magnetic fields.

The news of Henry's work spread quickly, allowing him to become a professor at Princenton University. Then he tried to create small electromagnets and together with Morse he created the first telegraph based on an electromagnet. More specifically, Henry first designed the telegraph network, but Mors performed the first practical experiments. That is why it is said that the father of the telegraph is Morse.

The telegraph was not the only invention that fled to Henry. In August 1830, taking advantage of his vacation, he discovered the principle of induction. The following year, in order to complete these studies, he returned to work without ending. During the course Faraday was able to read the work done on induction. Henry did his first investigations, but Faraday published them.

Henry believed that when an electrical circuit conducts a current it generates a magnetic field. This makes the circuit itself immersed in this area. The electromagnetic induction that causes the variation of the current intensity in the circuit itself was called autoinduction. Faraday came to that conclusion, but this time Henry was the first to publish it.

In 1846 he was appointed secretary of the Smithsonian Organization. There he worked hard on creating communication channels between scientists. It contributed to the creation of the U.S. Meteorology Institute, where the first scientific use of telegraph occurred.

After obtaining approval from the people, the US government and scientists, he died in Washington in 1878. In homage to the American physicist who in 1893 the International Electricity Congress approved henry's inscription to the self-induction unit.