Prelude to Power

Entitled 'Prelude to Power: The story of Faraday and the Induction Ring', this black and white film from the late 1950s details the scientific researches of Michael Faraday undertaken at the Royal Institution. This historical film explains the foundation of the Royal Institution, highlighting original objects from the Ri's collection before entering the famous lecture theatre to look in on a schools lectures being given by Sir William Lawrence Bragg. WL Bragg and Bill Coats are seen demonstrating a Whimshurst machine and a Faraday cage and talking through the principles of electricity. The film then moves into a restaging of Faraday (played by Tony Thawnton) life and experimentation, showing him in his bookbinder's workshop and then later undertaking his electrical researches at the Ri. The film, interspersed between reconstruction and animation, highlights the importance of magnets and Faraday's theory of lines of force. The film explains and demonstrates in detail the work of Hans Christian Ørsted, Faraday's development of the first electrical motor and the development of the electro-magnet. This film is presented by the EFVA, The organisation for European Economic Co-Operation and The Educational Foundation for Visual Aids. Crown copyright information is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland. Subscribe to our other YouTube channel for weekly science talks and explosive short films: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution We're on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/