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Science and Medicine
Lot 66

PRESENTATION COPY OF FARADAY'S DISCOVERY OF SEMICONDUCTORS.
FARADAY, MICHAEL. 1791-1867.
"Experimental Researches in Electricity (Fourth Series): On a new Law of Electric Conduction. On Conducting Power Generally." OFFPRINT FROM: Philosophical Transactions. London: Richard Taylor, 1833.

24 April – 4 May 2023, 12:00 EDT
Online, New York

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PRESENTATION COPY OF FARADAY'S DISCOVERY OF SEMICONDUCTORS.

FARADAY, MICHAEL. 1791-1867. "Experimental Researches in Electricity (Fourth Series): On a new Law of Electric Conduction. On Conducting Power Generally." OFFPRINT FROM: Philosophical Transactions. London: Richard Taylor, 1833.
4to (284 x 220 mm). Woodcut illustration in text. Later wrappers.
Provenance: St George's Hospital (inscribed by the author, "St. George's Med. & Surgical Society, from the author"), stamp to title page and verso of final leaf.

PRESENTATION COPY OF FARADAY'S LANDMARK DOCUMENTATION OF THE PROPERTIES OF A SEMICONDUCTOR. Presented as the fourth series of Faraday's "Experimental Researches in Electricity," his defining series of papers which set forth the concepts of field theory considered "the starting point for the revolutionary theories of Clerk Maxwell... [and] laid the foundation of the modern electrical industry" (PMM 408). Indeed, here in the fourth series in an essay entitled "On conducting power generally," Faraday recognizes for the first time the properties of semiconductors, identifying the "extraordinary case" of electrical conduction increasing with temperature in silver sulfide crystals, the opposite of the conduction of metals. It would take more than 100 years to develop and produce the first transistor in 1954, but it was Faraday's discovery that opened the possibility.

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