Science
Sliding a magnet through a coil of wire gave the world electric generators
In 1831, Michael Faraday found that moving a magnet in and out of a coil of wire induced an electric current in the wire, even though nothing ever touched it. That single discovery, electromagnetic induction, is the working principle behind every generator, transformer and electric motor built since. Faraday had almost no formal mathematics training; Maxwell later translated his law into equations.