Spyros Chatzigiannis

A 14-year-old apprentice in a London bookbinding shop read the books he was paid to bind, and ended up as one of the most important scientists who ever lived. I'm talking about Michael Faraday. His family was poor. He had only basic schooling. In 1805 he was apprenticed to a bookbinder named George Riebau. Customers brought books in to be bound. Faraday read them. In 1812 a customer named William Dance gave him tickets to hear Humphry Davy, the most famous chemist in Britain, lecture at the Royal Institution. Faraday went to four lectures. He took detailed notes. He wrote them up neatly, added his own drawings, and bound them himself into a 386-page book. Then he sent the book to Davy and asked for any job in science. Davy had just been hurt in a lab accident and needed help. In 1813 Faraday was hired as a laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution. He never went to university. In 1831 he discovered electromagnetic induction. Move a magnet near a coil of wire, and you get electricity. Almost every power station on Earth still runs on that idea. In 1827 he gave the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures for young people, a series that still runs today. Most people take notes to pass a test. He took notes so good that the lecturer couldn't ignore them. What's one thing you made that opened a door for you?