Ângelo António Bola

Brief History of the Emergence and Development of Electromagnetism

Rovuma University
Nampula
2023

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 Ângelo António Bola

Brief History of the Emergence and Development of Electromagnetism

Bachelor's Degree in Physics Education

Electricity Chair Work

Magnetism presented at the Faculty of Sciences
Natural Mathematics and Statistics for purposes
evaluative.
Master: Momade Jaime Chau and
Costa Manuel

Rovuma University

Nampula

2023

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Index
Introduction........................................................................................................................................4

Brief History of the emergence and development of Electromagnetism.....................................5

Antiquity

Middle Ages

Contemporary Age

Modern Age.................................................................................................................................7

Origin of electromagnetism

Conclusion......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Introducing the present work which has as its theme, a brief history of the emergence of
electromagnetism, we will see its emergence in antiquity with the philosophers in ancient Greece and
with the expectation of discovering a stone that had properties to attract pieces of iron,
in a small region of Turkey called Magnesia and consequently with some advances of
science has been developing further and some physicists have emerged who dedicated themselves to the study of
electricity and magnetism thus giving rise to electromagnetism, which is today the foundation of science

human, the work having this general objective, to know the emergence of electromagnetism and its
precursors.

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Brief History of the Emergence and Development of Electromagnetism

Antiquity
In ancient Greece, philosophers were already talking about the 'wonderful' properties of a stone that
there would be a 'soul' that would be of divine origin. The first reference about this stone says that a
pastor named Magnes found a stone that had this 'divine property'. Hence comes the
origin of the name of this mineral, Magnetite.

Other accounts refute this information and say that, in fact, the first discovery of this
The material was made in a region of Turkey known as Magnesia.

Whatever the truth, at the time of discovery, knowledge was the domain of philosophers.
animists and, later, by mechanistic philosophers. These ideas (metaphysical superstitions)
they formed the foundation of almost all scientific thought until the Renaissance. Nevertheless, in this

the first scientific application of the material emerged, the compass. The account of the emergence
the compass has various different sources and its emergence dates back to texts that mention 1100 BC in
China has texts that report the emergence in 1637 AD in Spain. Perhaps the most notable fact...

An interesting statement he made is that the Earth is a large magnet. Discard.

published the first theory that eliminated the idea of 'effluvia', which means emanations and began to
attribute the concept of parts 'twisted' that penetrate into 'channels' existing in the magnets and in
Earth, and these go from one pole to the other. This is the origin of the idea of poles. Until the period situated

between 1600 and 1700, metaphysical thought began to be replaced by mathematics and the method
The scientific method began to emerge with Galileo, Newton among others.

Middle Ages
William Gilbert (1544-1603)

Only two thousand years later, physicist Gilbert began the systematic study of electricity and
managed to prove that it is not only amber that acquires this strange property. Discovered
also that by rubbing silk on a piece of glass it acquired a similar property, with
some different characteristics, and named the two effects, calling them electricity

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resinous (for amber) and vitreous electricity (for glass). The name electric derives from the
Greek word Elektron, which means amber. He was also the first to provide an explanation for
phenomenon. He said that there was a fluid in the materials, and that this fluid was removed when one
to scrape with the skin of an animal, and upon removing this fluid, a emanation remained, which caused
the force that attracted the dust particles.

Gilbert was a famous doctor in London and published the treatise "De Magnete" in Latin, where
discussed the attraction properties of magnets and amber, in addition to suggesting that the Earth was a
large magnet, with this he established the distinction between electricity and magnetism.

Gilbert's work can be considered the first attempt to theorize about the
phenomena of electricity and magnetism

Otto von Guericke (1602-1686)

German physicist Guericke, who noticed the repulsion of particles with the same charge, and built the

first electrostatic machine to electrify a body, the electrostatic generator. Observed the
the power of the tips in electrified bodies and also that the flame of a candle could de-electrify
a charged metallic body. Discovered electrical induction, a way to electrify a body
without any contact with him. One of his most important discoveries was that
Electrified substances, in addition to attraction, could experience repulsion. But it was unable to explain

how a charged ball could electrify another by contact, that is, conduction or transmission
of electricity. Perhaps because, for him, electricity was an intrinsic quality of
bodies and, therefore, not transmissible.

Stephen Gray (1679-1736)

In 1731, the English physicist Gray clearly demonstrated electrical conduction in bodies, which
they were then classified by him as conductors and non-conductors (insulators). He introduced the idea of
to associate electricity with an electric fluid, universal and imponderable, capable of depositing itself
between the pores and interstices of material bodies.

In 1759, Franz Ulrich Theodor ÄPINUS (1724-1802) demonstrated the existence of all degrees of
transition between conductors and non-conductors. He made the first observations of the influence
exercised by charged bodies in insulated conductors.

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Contemporary Age
In 1775, Alessandro Count Volta (1745-1827) developed the electrophorus (invented by Wilcke).
from which electric machines were later developed.

During the eighteenth century, only one discovery about magnetism was made. So premature
As for Wilcke's discovery, in 1778, Anton Brugmans (1732-1789) discovered the
diamagnetism, when he observed that bismuth was repelled by a magnet.

Charles Augustin de Coulomb (1736-1806)

In 1785, physicist Coulomb, a retired military civil engineer, conducted experiments with a
torsion balance and stated the famous law that now bears his name 'the force between two charges is
directly proportional to the charge in each of them and inversely to the square of the distance
that separates them." In 1786, Coulomb reported that a conductor also shields its interior.
I was unaware of Cavendish's reports), and saw in this also an indication for the law of force.
. However, this part of the account was so completely forgotten that the effect of
shielding today is linked to the name of Faraday.

Modern Age
Alessandro Volta

In 1796, Alessandro Volta was the first to successfully extract electrical energy from another source.
source that is not mechanical. In the Voltaic pile, the chemical reactions that occur between two
metals are responsible for the resulting electric energy. The flow of electrons that comes out of a
material and goes to the other produces this current that is practically constant (as long as it lasts
the materials). The process is now called oxidation-reduction.

Humphrey Davy

Humphrey Davy managed to decompose water into oxygen and hydrogen by passing through it a
huge current achieved through the assembly of a huge battery with more than
two hundred zinc and copper plates. Through the same assembly, it was also possible to obtain in

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pure form of various other elements such as sodium and potassium and some other elements
unknown at the time, such as: calcium, strontium, barium, and magnesium. The process was baptized
of electrolysis. The other important discovery was the electric arc. Davy realized that a large
a spark would form when interrupting the circuit made by the batteries. This phenomenon brought the
inauguration of a new form of lighting: the electric arc.

In turn, in 1811, Siméon Denis POISSON (1781-1849) made progress with the law of
Coulomb, working on potential theory, which had initially been developed for the
gravitation. He showed that all electrostatics, not considering the presence of dielectrics,
can be explained by Coulomb's law or, equivalently, by the differential equation of
Laplace-Poisson

Origin of electromagnetism
Hans Christian Oersted (1771-1851)

The birth of electromagnetism occurred in the 19th century, with the classic experiment of the physicist

Danish Hans Christian Oersted (1771-1851). In 1820, he found that by placing a

compass under a wire where an electric current passed, there was a deviation in the needle of that
compass. From this experience Oerted established a relationship between the properties
electric and magnetic, giving rise to electromagnetism.

Concurrently, in 1820, Jean Baptiste BIOT (1774-1862) and Félix SAVART (1791-1841)
formulated, from experimental observations, the law that bears their names and which allows for the
calculation of magnetic fields produced by electric currents.

André-Marie Ampère

The physicist and mathematician Ampère built the first electromagnet. This device was fundamental.
for the invention of the improvement of various devices, such as the telephone, the microphone, the speaker,
speaker, the telegraph etc. Knowing about Oersted's discoveries, he also dedicated himself to the subject and

formulated the rule for indicating the direction of the magnetic field created by an electric circuit.
In addition, it was discovered that parallel circuits with currents in the same direction attract each other, and if

they repel when the currents are opposite, and solenoids act with bar magnets.

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Georg Simon Ohm (1789-1854)

The magnetic effects of electric currents now provided ways to measure them.
intensities. Soon in 1826, Georg Simon OHM used these facts to separate the concepts of force
electromotive, potential gradient and intensity of electric current and derived the law that
takes its name and establishes the proportionality between the potential difference in a
the conductor and the electric current produced. The proportionality factor represents the resistance.
of material. It also proved that the resistance of a wire is directly proportional to its
length is inversely proportional to its straight section, thus creating the basis for the
concept of conductivity of materials

George Green

The physicist-mathematician Green published in 1828 'An Essay on the Application of Analysis'
mathematics to the theories of electricity and magnetism,” where he extended Poisson's work
to obtain a general solution method for the potential.

Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)

Gauss's contribution was in providing the first absolute measure of the moment.
magnetic from magnets and the intensity of the Earth's magnetic field, continuing with Weber
Gilbert's work. He created the first rational system of electromagnetic units, in which
a unit of quantity of electricity is the amount that, at a distance of a
centimeter, repels an equal quantity with a force of one dyne

Joseph Henry (1797-1878)

The physicist Henry was the first American after Franklin to conduct scientific experiments.
In 1830 he observed the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, but as he did not publish his
results, did not receive merit for this. However, received distinction for the discovery of
phenomenon of self-induction. In 1831, he helped Samuel Finley Breese Morse to build the
telegraph.

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Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday, self-taught English scientist, made his great contribution to electromagnetism.
with the discovery of electromagnetic induction, fundamental for the emergence of motors
electric mechanics and transformers. In 1831, Fadadas wound two coils of wire.
around an iron ring and observed that the current exerted a backward action that
it corresponded to its magnetic action. When he created an electric current in the first coil,
a current pulse appeared in the second coil at the moment the circuit was closed, and
again when the circuit was opened, but in the opposite direction.

Faraday discovered the influence of dielectrics on electrostatic phenomena, and from 1846
dedicated itself to describing the general distribution of diamagnetic properties in all materials
for which, in contrast, paramagnetism appears as an exception. To complete,
Faraday also discovered the effects of magnetism on light.

Heinrich Lenz (1804-1865)

Heinrich Lenz, a Russian physicist who also dedicated himself to studying this phenomenon, Nicolas Tesla who

studied the magnetic field.

In 1845, at just 21 years old, Gustav Robert KIRCHHOFF stated the laws that allowed for the
calculation of currents, voltages, and resistances for branched circuits.

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

In 1884, HERTZ rederived Maxwell's equations by a new method, placing them in

current form. In addition, it was the first to emit and receive radio waves.

A new additional contribution emerged in 1884, when John Henry POYNTING (1852-1914), a
of Maxwell's students, showed that the energy flux of an electromagnetic wave could
to be expressed in a simple form, using the electric and magnetic fields

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

Finally, we can especially mention Maxwell, a notable Scottish physicist, whose participation was
fundamental theoretical importance. Maxwell in his work Treatise on Electricity and

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magnetism (published in 1873) generalized the principles of electricity discovered by
Coulomb, Ampère, Faraday, and others. Among other achievements, Maxwell discovered through equations.
mathematics of the speed of light with a very small percentage of error, in relation to
experimental data we have today. The later discovery of electromagnetic waves
constituted the experimental verification of the correctness of Maxwell's Theory

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Conclusion
Magnetism has impressed man since ancient times, when it was first noticed.
It often instigated men's curiosity to know why magnetite attracted certain materials.
Many scientists and curious individuals dedicated years of their lives to the study of magnetism until...

the phenomenon were completely known and could be profitably applied.

The physics of electromagnetism was first studied by the philosophers of ancient Greece.
they discovered that if a piece of amber was rubbed and then brought near pieces
of straw, this would be attracted by amber. Soon from this modest origin in ancient Greece the
The sciences of electricity and magnetism developed independently for centuries, until
1820, when Hans Christian discovered a connection between them.

So the new science of electromagnetism was cultivated by many countries. One of the most active
It was Michael Faraday with the discovery of electromagnetic induction and the physicist James Maxwell.

which continued with the ideas of Faraday and many other physicists.

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Bibliography
HALLIDAY, D., RESNICK, R., KRANE; Fundamentals of Physics - Electromagnetism - Vol. 3
10th Edition. Publisher: LTC, 2016.

RESNICK, R., HALLIDAY, D., WALKER, J., Electricity and Magnetism, 4th edition, LTC Publishing

TIPLER, P.; Physics

Electricity and Magnetism, Optics, Vol. 2, Technical and Scientific Books S.A., Rio de Janeiro, 2000.

Nicolau Ramalho

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electromagnetism/supplementary-material/history-of-electromagnetism/

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CAVALCANTE, Kleber G. "The History of Electromagnetism"; Brazil School. Available at:

Unable to access external links.

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