Michael Faraday (1791-1867), one of Britain's foremost physicists, is most famous for discovering principles relating to magnetic induction and the relationship between magnetism and electricity. But Faraday was also an inventive lecturer and actually initiated the tradition of the Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution (the lectures still go on to this day and are televised in the United Kingdom). Faraday even has the honor of having a unit of measurement named after him; the farad is a unit of electrical capacitance. However, an achievement of this scientist that much less often finds its way into the history books is that he also invented the toy balloon.
Faraday's career began not in physics but in chemistry. He was appointed as a chemicals assistant at the Royal Institution and performed experiments in this capacity, investigating chlorine and the nature of gases. It was while researching the properties of hydrogen that Faraday made the first rubber balloon.
Balloon-s had been made for many hundreds of years from intestines. These smelly amusements were touted around court in the European Middle Ages on the ends of sticks by jesters, who fashioned them into amusing shapes. Faraday's balloons were more sanitary, being made from two sheets of rubber "welded" together to form a bag. When filled with hydrogen, the balloons ascended, defying the force of gravity and enabling Faraday to make observations about the properties of the gas.
Balloons became available commercially just a year later, when rubber manufacturer Thomas Hancock began producing a balloon-making "kit."
