Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Authenticity of Scientific Anecdotes

  • Letter
  • Published:

From Nature

View current issue Submit your manuscript

Abstract

THERE are two famous anecdotes told concerning-Michael Faraday and the usefulness of scientific discoveries. They appear in various forms in the works of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers on scientific subjects. Both are told usually in relation to Faraday's discoveries in the field of electro-magnetism. The usual form of the stories is that some dignitary or public official, usually the Prime Minister himself, visited Faraday at the Royal Institution and, on being given a demonstration of the phenomenon of induced currents, inquired: “What good is it?” One of the stories has it that Faraday replied: “What good is a new-born baby?” The other has it that he replied: “Soon you will be able to tax it”1.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. No personal references are necessary ; every year one or both of these anecdotes appears in books and articles.

  2. See Cohen, I. B., Benjamin Franklin and Aeronautics, J. Franklin Inst., 232, 101 (1941).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Smyth, A. H., (ed.), The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 10 vols., 9, 79 (New York: The Macmillan Co., 190710).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Van Doren, Carl, Benjamin Franklin, Chap. 24 (New York: The Viking Press, 1938).

    Google Scholar 

  5. ibid., p. 700.

  6. Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, 468 (Philadelphia, 1908).

  7. Quoted in Bence Jones, Life and Letters of Faraday, 1, 218 (London, 1879). See also Tyndall, John, Faraday as a Discoverer, 43 (London, 1870).

    Google Scholar 

  8. See Findlay, Alexander, A Hundred Years of Chemistry, 19, 300 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Quoted in Tyndall, op. cit., p. 43.

  10. Pelseneer, Jean, La pomme de Newton, Ciel et Terre, 1 4 (1937).

  11. White, A. Hastings, (ed.), Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life by William Stukeley, M.D., F.R.S., 1752, 19 (London: Taylor and Francis, 1936).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Mass.

    I. BERNARD COHEN

Authors
  1. I. BERNARD COHEN
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

COHEN, I. Authenticity of Scientific Anecdotes. Nature 157, 196–197 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157196b0

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157196b0

  • Springer Nature Limited

Search

Navigation