Challenger of Einstein now takes on Faraday

The father of electricity, Michael Faraday, would take just a matter of "minutes to agree". So predicted Irish scientist Dr Al Kelly of his latest challenge to one of the fundamental laws of science: how electricity is made.

He dismissed talk yesterday of his genius but declared he is never prepared to be quiet when it is obvious to him that science does not make sense and deserves another explanation.

In 1995, therefore, he took Einstein to task for aspects of his special theory of relativity, and he now claims vindication.

It triggered a global war of words on the Internet which is still being waged. He stood back from this but is comforted by the views of leading physicist Prof J.P. Vigier; enough to believe what he said was right, though it is a minority view. He was not put out by accusations that he is a maverick. "I'm not anti-Einstein. It's just that if the thing doesn't add up, it doesn't add up."

At a public lecture coinciding with publication of a 30-page scientific paper, Dr Kelly pronounced Faraday's Law - the basis of the whole theory of electricity - to be incorrect. And he said he is providing the solution to a 166-year mystery which has baffled physicists when considering the relationship of magnetism and electricity.

His findings will not be consigned to debate within obscure science journals. He claimed they should lead to more efficient designs of electric generators and motors, because engineers will now understand clearly the basic cause and effect upon which these machines are designed. The Institution of Engineers of Ireland hosted his presentation.

Faraday's Law states that the voltage generated in an electrical circuit, or loop, depends upon the "rate of change of the magnetic flux" (also known as the invisible magnetic field, or forces surrounding a magnet) through the circuit.

Faraday claimed that moving a conductor (or wire) in any manner near a stationary magnet produces a voltage across the conductor, but if the magnet is rotated on its north-south axis it produces no voltage across the conductor.

This puzzled physicists. The most frequent modern explanation was that the lines of magnetic force surrounding the magnet do not rotate with it when it is turned. But this is in serious conflict with Einstein's relativity theory. Dr Kelly's discovery overcomes this and shows they do rotate.

He has a different explanation which, ironically, squares with Einstein's theory. Using a machine built by ESB trainee fitters over three years at a cost of some £1,500, he demonstrated that a huge change in the flux causes no voltage whatsoever in some circuits. A £20 electrical device which most electricians carry with them could also provide proof, he says, now that verifying tests are completed.

The number of times that lines of force cross, or "cut", the conductor is critical. If there is no cutting by the lines, no voltage will be generated. Faraday and experimenters since were misled because they did not do the rotation process correctly, he claimed. Moreover, Dr Kelly's interpretation gives a satisfactory explanation of the "Faraday generator", which had not before been possible.

It is not the rate of flux that causes the voltage but the cutting of the conductor by the magnetic lines of force; the number of times that this occurs and the strength of the magnetic field at the point of cutting are critical.

"There is no longer any problem in relation to Relativity Theory but Faraday's Law is incorrect," he said.

Faraday's Law may work 95 per cent of the time but a more appropriate law, he claimed, should read: "there must be a cutting of a conductor by a line of force to a voltage on that conductor".

Dr Kelly added: "When you say it's wrong, you mean it has worked up to now but you have found something that contradicts it. Then you have to find a law that subsumes Faraday's Law. That is the way science works."

Dr Kelly (72), a former director of generation and transmission with the ESB and winner of a place in the Guinness Book of Records for his research on pumping liquids, believed Faraday was so absorbed in discovering so much about electricity and magnetism that he had no time to go back to resolve the mystery relating to his law.

Dr Kelly is glad to put the record straight - 166 years later.