Electricity And Magnetism

Electricity is defined as the presence and movement of electrical charges. Magnetism on the other hand is the property of an object to attract another object.  Science historians say that ancient Greeks and maybe even earlier civilizations were already aware of electricity and magnetism but not much work was done on these two interesting phenomena then.

It was around the year 1000 when a new development related to these phenomena was made by the Chinese when they began to use a magnetic compass for navigation.  In 1269 some of the basic laws that apply to magnets were written down.  By the end of the 16^th century William Gilbert studied static electricity and magnetism.  After this however these two phenomena were not given much attention anymore not till the 18^th century when some scientists started to focus on the study of static electricity again. It was during this time when Charles Augustin Coulomb made careful studies of the forces exerted by both static electricity and magnetism. It was Coulomb who gave the conclusion that both electric charges and magnets follow the same rule where like charges repel and unlike charges attract. This conclusion implied a connection between electricity and magnetism. Hans Christian Oersted announced in 1807 that he will pursue the study of the relationship between these two phenomena. By accident, he did discover the relationship between electricity and magnetism. While giving a class demonstration, Oersted unknowingly placed a compass near an electric current and noticed that the needle of the compass was deflected to a direction perpendicular to the current. This observation made him conclude that there was indeed a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism.

Oersted’s announcement of the results of his study on electricity and magnetism provided the impetus for more in depth studies on the two phenomenon.  These resulted in more and more discoveries, which gave scientists a clearer and better understanding of electricity and magnetism. Applying principles of these two phenomenon, devices that changed peoples’ lives dramatically were then invented.  These new inventions include the electromagnets, electric motors, electric bulbs and the electrical relay, which is the forerunner of the first telegraph.

Electricity And Magnetism

Electricity for most of us simply means electric power provided by the electric companies to households and industries so that devices, appliances and equipment that require such power can run. This is however not a precise definition of electricity.  Electricity is a general term that covers a lot of different phenomena that comes about because of the presence and movement of an electrical charge. Examples of these phenomena are lightning, static electricity, the electrical current that runs in homes, offices and industries and the electromagnetic field.  Electricity and magnetism are two topics that are often tackled in relation to each other.  This is because the two are closely related and very similar.

Basic properties of electricity and magnetism will illustrate why these two phenomena are closely related.  Electricity as earlier mentioned is the presence and motion of an electric charge, magnetism in general terms on the other hand is the property of an object that enables it to attract another object. Electricity involves electrically charged positive and negative particles.  Particles with the same charge repel while particles with opposite charges attract.  Magnets on the other hand have what are called north poles and south poles.  Two magnets only attract when the north pole of one of the magnets is placed beside the south pole of the other magnet.  In other words, like poles repel and opposite poles attract.  Another similarity of electricity and magnetism is that in electricity, current flows from negative to positive poles.  In much the same way, in magnets the magnetic field or field lines travel from North to South.

It was a Danish chemist and physicist named Hans Christian Orstead who accidentally discovered a connection between electricity and magnetism more than 100 years ago. Orstead while demonstrating something to his class accidentally placed a compass over an electric wire.  When he did, the compass’ needle suddenly moved to a position perpendicular to the current making him conclude that electricity and magnetism are two related phenomena.

Electricity And Magnetism

When we think of electricity and magnetism, we sometimes think they are magic because they can’t be seen by the naked eye but just like the wind, we know it is there because we can see the leaves of the trees moving by themselves or we can feel the cold on our skin but we can’t see it. We only feel it. Before we can actually understand how these two forces work, we need to know the components of each thing around us and reconcile it with both electricity and magnets. Let’s expound further on this natural magic that makes up almost every minute of our time.

To learn how electricity and magnetism work, we have to know that each thing in this world is composed of molecules and atoms. Atoms are consisting of electrons, neutrons and protons.  We all know that electricity and magnetism has both positive and negative polarities. These are because the atoms that compose everything in this world are composed of positive and negative charges as well. Electrons orbit around a negative charge, protons are positive charges and neutrons orbit around the neutral charge or can be orbiting around no charge at all. Magnetism has positive and negative fields that would attract or repel each other, that would cause objects to “push” away from each other when being put together. Electricity on the other hand, has both the negative and positive charge that would make an appliance work. For example, a battery would have negative and positive polarities that would produce electricity. If you use both negative charges at the same time and both positives charges in an appliance, there is a good chance the machine won’t work.

Our planet Earth is also a giant magnet that contains a lot of magnetic fields. These magnetic fields are different from gravity. The magnetism comes from South and North poles. Hence a compass works only to point to the North. Both electricity and magnetism work very similarly to each other.

Electricity And Magnetism

Discovering some things in the universe has often been accidental. Like when Isaac Newton made the theory of gravity, the electricity and magnetism theory has also been discovered accidentally. It was in 1820 when Hans Christian Orsted, a Danish physicist and chemist, was preparing his materials when he noticed that his steel compass was deflecting to the north when a battery he was using was turned on. This prompted him to conclude that some kind of magnetic field radiates through a wire with electric current. Although he had not expounded on his theory, he had concluded that an electric current can produce magnetic effects. Actually, Orsted was not the only discoverer of the relationship of electricity and magnetism, in 1802, an Italian scholar Gian Domenico Romagnosi, had accidentally deflected a magnetic needle through electricity. Although his discovery was not known as the first discovery, his initial findings were published only in an Italian newspaper but still have been credited by science.

Soon after Hans Christian Orsted discovered the relation between electricity and magnetism, the intensive research for electrodynamics started for a scientific community. In this research did French physicist and mathematician Andrḗ-Marie Ampere developed that there are magnetic forces between conductors in a single mathematical form. The unification of the electricity and magnetism theory by Andrḗ-Marie Ampere has sparked the collaboration of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell, who had extended Faraday’s studies.  But the main accomplishment of mathematical physics in the 19th century was the partial reformulation of the theory, which was done by Oliver Heaviside and Heinrich Hertz. In Heaviside and Hertz’s studies, they had included the involvement of light and concluded that what they called “photons” are quantified light and electromagnetic waves that emit different frequencies.

In 1873, the publication of the book by James Clerk Maxwell entitled Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism have laid out the unification of these two forces which were earlier thought to be separated.