Brief History of

Electromagnetism
• Ancient Times: Amber rubbed with fur attracts bits of dust and
hairs. Static electricity - spikes on cold, dry days, lightening.
Lodestone compass.
• 1747: Benjamin Franklin discovered the two kinds of charges:
positive and negative and that like charges repel and unlike
charges attract. Franklin also documents "conservation of
charge" - an isolated system has constant total charge.
• 1785: Charles Augustin de Coulomb documented Coulomb's
Law. Coulomb proved that the force between two charges Q1
and Q2 is proportional to their product divided by the
separation distance r squared.
• 1780: Luigi Galvani discovered electricity from two different
metals causes frog legs to twitch.
• 1790: Alessandro Volta found chemistry acting on two
dissimilar metals generates electricity. He later invented the
voltaic pile battery.
• 1820: According to Hans Christian Oersted, electric
current affects compass needle.
• 1820: Andre Marie Ampere in Paris found that wires carrying
current produce forces on each other.
• 1820: Michael Faraday at Royal Society in London
developed the idea of electric field and studied the effect of
currents on magnets and magnets inducing electric currents.
• 1873: James Clerk Maxwell, a Scotish Physicist, summarized
and synthesized the discoveries of Coloumb, Oersted,
Ampere, Faraday, and others in 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.
• 1885: Heinrich Hertz showed Maxwell was correct, and
generated and detected electromagnetic waves.
• 1895: Guglielmo Marconi put electromagnetism to practical
use by sending messages over long distances by means of
radio signals.
Amber Stones
Benjamin Franklin Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
Luigi Galvani Alessandro Volta
Hans Christian Oersted Andre Marie Ampere
Michael Faraday James Clerk Maxwell
Heinrich Hertz Guglielmo Marconi