Brief History of

Electromagnetism
 Hans Christian Oersted
(1777-1851)
• Discover in 1820 that electric current affects a
compass needle and creates magnetic fields.
• The first scientist to find the connection between
electricity and magnetism. He is remembered
today for Oersted’s Law.
Andre Marie Ampere (1775-
1836)
• in 1820 found that wires carrying current produce
forces on each other. Ampere announced his
theory of electrodynamics in 1821, relating to the
force that one current exerts upon another by its
electromagnetic effects.
• Theory of Electrodynamics states that two parallel
portions of a circuit attract one another if the
currents in them are flowing in the same direction,
and repel one another if the currents flow in the
opposite direction.
• Two portions of circuits crossing one another
obliquely attract one another if both the currents
flow either towards or from the point of crossing and
repel one another if one flows to and the other from
that point. When an element of a circuit exerts a
force on another element of a circuit, that force
always tends to urge the second one in a direction
at right angles to its own direction.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
• Developed the idea of an electric field and studied
the effect of currents on magnets. It was by his
research on the magnetic field around a conductor
carrying a direct current that Faraday established
the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic
field in physics.
• Faraday also established that magnetism could
affect rays of light and that there was an underlying
relationship between the two phenomena. He
similarly discovered the principles of
electromagnetic induction and diamagnetism and
the laws of electrolysis.
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-
1879)
• a Scottish physicist and mathematician based the
theory of electromagnetism on mathematics.
Maxwell published Treatise on Electricity and
Magnetism in 1873 in which he summarizes and
synthesizes the discoveries of Coloumb, Oersted,
Ampere, Faraday into four mathematical equations.
Maxwell’s equations are used today as the basis of
electromagnetic theory. Maxwell made a
prediction about the connections of magnetism
and electricity leading directly to the prediction of
electromagnetic waves.
 Heinrich Hertz
• In 1885, German physicist Heinrich Hertz
proved Maxwell’s electromagnetic wave
theory was correct and generates and
detects electromagnetic waves. Hertz
published his work in a book, Electric Waves:
Being Researches on the Propagation of
Electric Action With Finite Velocity Through
Space. The discovery of electromagnetic
waves led to the development to the radio.
The unit of frequency of the waves
measured in cycles per second was named
the “hertz” in his honor.