Perhaps the first electric motors were simple electrostatic devices created by the Scottish

monk Andrew Gordon in the 1740s.[2] The theoretical principle behind production of mechanical
force by the interactions of an electric current and a magnetic field, Ampère's force law, was
discovered later by André-Marie Ampère in 1820. The conversion of electrical energy into
mechanical energy by electromagnetic means was demonstrated by the English scientist Michael
Faraday in 1821. A free-hanging wire was dipped into a pool of mercury, on which a permanent
magnet (PM) was placed. When a current was passed through the wire, the wire rotated around
the magnet, showing that the current gave rise to a close circular magnetic field around the
wire.[3] This motor is often demonstrated in physics experiments, brine substituting for toxic
mercury. Though Barlow's wheel was an early refinement to this Faraday demonstration, these
and similar homopolar motors were to remain unsuited to practical application until late in the
century.