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The Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted (or Oersted written in the English alphabet) is normally said to be the first to connect electricity with magnetism when he noted in 1819 that a compass needle deflected toward a wire coil carrying electric current.

This was later supported by experiments done by André-Marie Ampère in 1821, at the same time as Thomas Seebeck investigated heat-produced electromagnetism (the thermoelectric effect) in metals.

The list of investigators is a long one, and includes Michael Faraday and Benjamin Franklin. See the related links below.

Faraday reasoned from Oersted's observation that electricity caused a magnetic needle to move, that magnetism could cause electricity. Faraday produced electricity to prove his point by creating a generator. Faraday also had the idea of electromagnetic fields, invisible lines of force.

Some other names to add to the list:

  • Heinrich Lenz
  • James Maxwell

It was later in the 19th century when the most progress was made in understanding electromagnetics. James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Ernst Werner von Siemens, Alexander Graham Bell and Lord Kelvin all made contributions to a further understanding of the nature of the electromagnetic force. By the 20th century, we had a pretty good handle on electromagnetism, and we could use it to make electricity and electric motors and so many of the things that make our world "modern" and give us all the comfort and convenience we enjoy today - even though we may not think very much about it.

There are some links below, and they will take the curious investigator to relevant Wikipedia articles.

James Clerk Maxwell published his treatise on the connected nature of the forces in 1873. Prior to that time, a distinction was being made between electrostatic attraction (non-electrics) and ferromagnetism (electrics). Charged objects attracted lightweight objects regardless of their substance, but only metals responded to iron magnets.

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