(WHTM) — It’s one of the most common elements on Earth, making up 8.1 percent of the planet’s crust, but it didn’t even have a name until 1807. For centuries people made high-quality pottery and fixed dyes in textiles using compounds containing this element, but it wasn’t until the 1700s that scientists began to suspect […]
Hans Christian Ørsted, Ørsted also spelled Oersted, (born August 14, 1777, Rudkøbing, Denmark died March 9, 1851, Copenhagen), Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric current in a wire can deflect a magnetized compass needle, a phenomenon the importance of which was rapidly recognized and which inspired the development of electromagnetic theory. In 1806 Ørsted became a professor at the University of Copenhagen, where his first physical researches dealt with electric currents and acoustics. During an evening lecture in April 1820, Ørsted discovered that a magnetic needle aligns itself perpendicularly to a current-carrying wire, definite experimental evidence of the relationship