Abstract
ØRSTED'S discovery of electromagnetism came as a surprise to the scientific world and apparently without any preparatory work. It was communicated in a paper (July 1820), which in the briefest form possible gave an account of the conditions under which the experiments were made and of their results. His results have proved to be correct, but there are no drawings, no indications of the series of experiments he made,1 or rather of the several series of experiments, to indicate the way these results were reached. It has been said that the whole discovery was due to chance; that was far from being the case. ørsted had for years been seeking a connexion between electricity and magnetism, and the discovery was the result of his search.
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References
Kirstine Meyer : "The Scientific Life and Work of H. C. Ørsted", 1920, pp. lxxiv.–lxxxviii.; H. C. Ørsted, "Scientific Papers" vol. 1.
Thomson's Annals of Philosophy. New series, London, 1821 vol. 2, pp. 195 and 274; vol. 3, p. 107.
l c., p. 195.
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MEYER, K. Faraday and Ørsted. Nature 128, 337–339 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/128337a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/128337a0
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