How did Faraday turn a moving magnet into electric current?

You move a magnet through a coil of wire. The moving magnet changes the magnetic field through the coil, and that change pushes a current through the wire. This is electromagnetic induction, discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831, and the same principle sits inside every power station's generator.

The surprising part is the word moving. Early experiments had found that a static magnetic field has no effect on a nearby circuit: a magnet placed near a wire loop produces no current at all. The breakthrough came when Faraday showed that a changing magnetic field can induce a current. His first demonstration, on 29 August 1831, wrapped two wires around opposite sides of an iron ring. When he connected one wire to a battery, a brief current flickered in the other, and another flicker when he disconnected it. He called it a wave of electricity. Nothing flowed while the battery was steadily connected, only at the moments of change.

The man who found this had a remarkable start. Faraday became a bookbinder's apprentice at 14. With only the most basic school education, he had to educate himself. In 1813, Humphry Davy, who had damaged his eyesight in an accident, hired him as an assistant.

He found more ways to do it: slide a bar magnet in and out of a coil and a current flickers. Spin a copper disk near a magnet and it makes a steady current. Motion plus magnetism makes electricity, for as long as the machine keeps turning.