Oersted, Hans

 

Hans Ørsted  (often rendered Oersted in English) was a Danish physicist and chemist who, in 1819, discovered the deflection of a compass needle when electric current from a battery was switched on and off while performing a demonstration for his students. This deflection convinced him that magnetic fields radiate from all sides of a wire carrying an electric current, as do light and heat, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism. Three months later, he began more intensive investigations and soon thereafter published his findings, showing that an electric current produces a magnetic field as it flows through a wire. 

The discovery that a magnetic needle is deflected at right angles to a conductor carrying an electric current established a relationship between magnetism and electricity and initiated the study of electromagnetism. His findings stirred much research into electrodynamics throughout the scientific community, influencing French physicist André-Marie Ampère's developments of a single mathematical formula to represent the magnetic forces between current-carrying conductors. Ørsted's work also represented a major step toward a unified concept of energy. 

In 1822, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In 1825, Ørsted made a significant contribution to chemistry by producing aluminum for the first time. While an aluminum-iron alloy had previously been developed by British scientist and inventor Humphry Davy, Ørsted was the first to isolate the element via a reduction of aluminum chloride.

The centimeter-gram-second system (CGS) unit of magnetic induction (oersted) is named for his contributions to the field of electromagnetism.

Sources

  • Cleveland, Cutler (Lead Author); Peter Saundry (Topic Editor). 2007. "Oersted, Hans." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [Published in the Encyclopedia of Earth March 19, 2007; Retrieved September 30, 2009]. 
  • Wikipedia Contributors, Hans Christian Ørsted, Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Accessed 30 September 2009.

 

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