Ask a Teacher

Search



who is h c oersted?
Electromagnetism was discovered in the spring of 1820 by the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted when, during a lecture to an advanced group of students, he demonstrated that the needle of a compass moved when placed near a current- carrying wire. By July of that year, he was certain that an electric current produced about it a circular magnetic field, and he published his results in a short paper, written in Latin, and carried by the major scientific journals of Europe.

Oersted's great discovery had an enormous impact on the scientific world. More than a hundred scientists published their comments and researches on electromagnetism within seven years of the discovery, and Oersted was showered with honors and awards. The Royal Society of
London gave him the Copley Medal, and the French Academy awarded him a prize of 3000 gold francs. For the rest of his life, he was a recognized leader in science, and in his honor the oersted was chosen as the standard cgs unit of magnetic field intensity.


comments powered by Disqus